Five Fruit and Vegetable a Day Does Not Reflect the Upward Trend of Obesity in the U.S.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: After almost three decades of U.S. surveillance in fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake and obesity, it is important to evaluate their usefulness for monitoring prevention and health promotion efforts in public health. We used U.S. surveillance data to evaluate whether the 16-year trends of F&V intake, measured by the prevalence of eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day (FV5/day) is related to obesity trend as measured by its prevalence in the same period. We also evaluated whether trends in the prevalence of FV5/day by important sociodemographic factors (age, race/ethnicity, etc.) could explain the findings. STUDY DESIGN: A secondary analysis of U.S. adults (≥ 18 years) from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) (1994-2009). METHODS: We categorized survey subjects for their F&V intake derived from the BRFSS six-question food frequency questionnaire into two groups: