News flash: Americans still not eating their fruits, vegetables

Just as the Produce for Better Health Foundation is set to launch the Fruits and Veggies: More Matters campaign, the Centers for Disease Control is all over the news wires with coverage of a CDC study that reveals that a study that, yes, Americans are still not eating enough fruits and veggies.

The strange thing about this coverage is I couldn't find any hot links on the CDC site to the study that was cited in the AP coverage noted above. If anyone finds a link to the study, leave it as a comment to this post.

It leaves me wondering if the CDC news was planted just ahead of the More Matters launch to raise the awareness of the need for a new initiative to raise fruit and vegetable consumption. Yet, at the same time, the CDC makes no mention of the More Matters launch, which you would think would have fit perfectly into the context of the story. The long-running 5 a Day public/private effort to move the consumption needle also was left unmentioned.

Here are some excerpts from the AP coverage:

Fewer than a third of American adults eat the amount of fruits and vegetables the government recommends, a trend that's remained steady for more than a decade, health officials said.
That's "well below" the government's goal of getting 75 percent of Americans to eat two servings of fruits and having half of the population consume three servings of vegetables each day by 2010, said Larry Cohen of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The diet survey, part of a huge federal health survey of every state, is based on responses from 305,000 adults in 2005. It indicates the country is only about halfway toward meeting its healthy eating goal three years from now.
"We're really concerned with the lack of success in meeting these national goals," said Cohen, who works in CDC's nutrition and physical activity division.
Although the rate of fruit and vegetable consumption has remained unchanged since 1994, health officials said the goal is still within reach.
"We have more work to do over the next few years," spokeswoman Rachel Ciccarone said.
Specifically, the survey showed that 27 percent of adults ate vegetables three times a day, and about 33 percent ate fruit twice a day. A serving size is a half-cup for most fruits and vegetables, one cup for leafy greens.

TK: Here was the chance for the drop-in about the More Matters campaign, CDC.

Senior citizens were more likely than others to follow Mom's advice to eat more veggies, with slightly more than a third of that group eating three or more servings each day.

TK: Proof that Mom (and Dad's) advice still rings in our ears in our senior years.

Younger adults, ages 18 to 24, ate the fewest vegetables. Nearly four-fifths of that age category scraped the veggies to the side of their plates - if they had vegetables on the plate at all.
Likewise, seniors also ate the most fruit, with nearly 46 percent eating two or more servings of fruit daily. People age 35 to 44 ate fruit the least, with fewer than 28 percent eating the recommended amount of fruit each day.

TK: GenX moms are the target audience for More Matters, and there is plenty of work to do in the 24 to 44 age group.

The federal agency said it doesn't know why people aren't eating more veggies or fruits. Cohen said future surveys will ask people what other foods they are eating.

TK: A MSNBC instant poll (much like the famed Fresh Talk poll) asked this question and got these responses from 559 people:

A. I don't have time (37%)

B. They're expensive (27%)

C. I prefer other foods (20%)

D. I don't like how they taste(10%)

E. I don't know how to cook them(6.4%)

Telephone questioners asked how often they consumed fruit juice, fruit and vegetables. Although Hispanics ate the most fruits (37 percent) compared with blacks and non-Hispanic whites, they ate the fewest vegetables, (about 20 percent). Non-Hispanic whites, in contrast, ate the fewest fruits (31 percent) but the most veggies (28 percent).
Cohen said the CDC has been working on family and community programs to get more people to eat their veggies. The agency is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get more fresh produce into schools.
Krause said health officials should offer people simple options for getting fruits and vegetables in their diets, such as easy recipes in cooking classes and fruit smoothies or shakes in schools.
"If that's a way of getting it in, at least it's in the right direction," she said. "Certainly (whole) fruit is a better choice, but that could be the next alternative."

TK: I'm disappointed in how the CDC handled this survey. Unless it was a part of some grand strategy, CDC officials missed an obvious chance to make note of the More Matters launch.