July

July 2001: Highlights from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association

Below are summaries of several nutrition research articles published in the July 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. For more information, to receive a copy of a JADA article or this issue’s table of contents, or to interview an article’s author(s), please call Bridget McManamon (800) 877-1600, ext. 4769; or e-mail bmcmana@eatright.org.

More reasons to read food labels

A study by researchers at the University of Washington’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center finds that reading food labels tends to lower people’s consumption of fat. The researchers conducted a random telephone survey of 838 adults in 1995-96 and a follow-up survey in 1997-98. Their goal was to learn more about why people engage in “self-initiated, healthful dietary change.” According to the researchers, “very little is known about what motivates the general population to instigate dietary change.” By the time of the second survey, the participants had lowered their fat intake by about 2 percent and slightly increased their consumption of fruits and vegetables. “Use of food labels was strongly associated with fat reduction, but not with increases in fruit and vegetables,” the researchers write. The surveys also found fat reductions among women were twice as large as among men. Older and well-educated people, also reported more dietary changes than other groups, as did those who were already in the process of changing their diets. 

Many adolescents skip breakfast

Fewer than seven out of 10 American eighth graders eat at least three meals per day, according to a study of more than 1,500 adolescents conducted by researchers at the New England Medical Center, National Institutes of Health and other locations. Twenty percent of the adolescents said they eat just two meals, with breakfast the most commonly skipped meal. The researchers were studying whether adolescents’ eating patterns influence their nutrient intakes. They found 69 percent eat at least three meals daily. The study also showed overweight students were more likely to skip breakfast than students who were not overweight. On the other hand,  adolescents who ate fewer than three meals generally ate more snacks. The study showed that the adolescents eat 86 percent of their breakfasts and 80 percent of their dinners at home and 79 percent of their lunches at school. The students were a nationally representative sample drawn from 96 public schools in the San Diego, New Orleans, Minneapolis and Austin, Texas, areas.