Characteristics Distinguishing Adolescents by Fruit Consumption

Abstract

LEARNING OUTCOME: To characterize adolescents according to their fruit consumption for the development of effective nutrition messages.The primary messages promoted by the US Department of Agriculture's Team Nutrition program include expanding the variety of foods in the diet, adding more fruits, vegetables, and grains, and constructing a diet lower in fat. Data from the Nutritional Marketing Information Division of MRCA Information Services were analyzed to determine characteristics which distinguish adolescents with low and those with high consumption of fruit. MRCA recruits and selects households based on US Census figures for census region, metro-area size, household size, homemaker age, and household income. MRCA developed weights to yield a representative sample of the US population on a household and individual level. Data from July 1991 to June 1994 were analyzed using SPSS to calculate descriptive statistics and chi-square tests. Adolescents were divided into tertiles based on their average daily fruit consumption over 14 days. The lowest and highest tertiles (one tertile n= 85) were compared across several sociodemographic and psychographic variables of the adolescents’ primary food preparers. For this study adolescents were defined as those 11 through 17 years of age (n = 255). The median daily servings of fruit consumed was 0.9 for all adolescents. A majority of the adolescents (79%) had on average less than two servings per day and no fruit was consumed by 12% of the adolescents. The lowest tertile had a median fruit serving of 0.2 and the highest tertile had 1.6 servings. Adolescents’ age and consumption of fruit were not related. Males and females did not consume statistically different numbers of fruit servings. Food preparers’characteristics which distinguished low fruit consumers from high consumers (p ⩽.01) included food budget concerns, receptiveness to new foods and dishes, and concern over their household members’ health and nutrition. Adolescents appear not to be eating recommended servings of fruits, therefore, this information may be useful in developing programs to increase fruit consumption by adolescents.