US Adult Women Research Articles

Evaluating adherence to recommended diets in adults: the Alternate Healthy Eating Index

The Healthy Eating Index (HEI), designed to assess adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid, was previously associated with only a small reduction in major chronic disease risk in US adult men and women. We assessed whether an alternate index would better predict risk. Dietary intake reported by men and women from two prospective cohorts was scored according to an a priori designed Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI). In contrast with the original HEI, the AHEI distinguished quality within food groups and acknowledged health benefits of unsaturated oils. The score was then used to predict development of CVD, cancer or other causes of death in the same population previously tested. 67,271 women from the Nurses' Health Study and 38 615 men from the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study. Men and women with AHEI scores in the top vs. bottom quintile had a significant 20% and 11% reduction in overall major chronic disease, respectively. Reductions were stronger for CVD risk in men (RR = 0.61, 95% CI 0.49-0.75) and women (RR = 0.72, 95% CI 0.60-0.86). The score did not predict cancer risk. The AHEI was twice as strong at predicting major chronic disease and CVD risk compared to the original HEI, suggesting that major chronic disease risk can be further reduced with more comprehensive and detailed dietary guidance.

America’s Children

The rising tide of overweight and obesity in this nation and indeed around the world is apparent to all. From airlines to clothing manufacturers, industry has responded, either by charging larger customers more money for the space they occupy or by providing more accommodating sizes. Even the “final” industry has acquiesced—Goliath Casket, Inc, of Lynn, Ind, now provides several lines of oversize resting places for people weighing up to 700 lb, for whom conventional caskets are much too small. Of course, the tragedy is that these caskets are holding many who die too young. Obesity has been recognized as a major determinant of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease since 1998,1 but our efforts to stem the tide in the United States have not been successful. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have documented an increasing prevalence of this disorder during the period from 1985 to 2003 via the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,2 with increasing rates of overweight and obesity documented in successive surveys. Most recently, data from the National Center for Health Statistics National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which uses actual body measurements,3 showed that although US adult men and women are ≈1 in taller than they were in 1960, they are nearly 25 lb heavier on average as well. The average body mass index (BMI) has increased in adults from ≈25 in 1960 to 28 in 2002. Most troublesome were the data in children. A 10-year-old boy in 1963 weighed on average 74.2 lb. In 2002, he weighed nearly 85 lb. Fifteen-year-old boys were ≈15 lb heavier in 2002, and 15-year-old girls were ≈12 pounds heavier. Although children’s heights also increased (except for those of 15-year-old girls), the increase was not proportional; our children are a little taller, but they are much heavier. Finally, …

Hypertension curriculum review: epidemiology and the prevention of hypertension.

Hypertension curriculum review: epidemiology and the prevention of hypertension.

Self-reports of forgetting and remembering childhood sexual abuse in a nationally representative sample of US women

Objective: The purpose of this article is to describe patterns of forgetting and remembering childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in a nationally representative sample of US adult women. Method: The respondents were a national probability sample of 711 women, aged 26 years to 54 years, residing in noninstitutional settings in the contiguous 48 states. In a 1996 face-to-face interview survey, trained female interviewers asked each respondent whether she had experienced any sexual coercion by family members or nonfamily members while growing up; whether she believed that she had been sexually abused (by family members or others); and whether she had ever forgotten the CSA experiences and, if so, how she had subsequently remembered them. Results: Twenty-one and six-tenths percent of respondents reported having sexually coercive experiences while growing up; of these, 69.0% indicated that they felt they had been sexually abused. More than one-fourth of respondents who felt sexually abused reported that they had forgotten the abuse for some period of time but later remembered it on their own. Only 1.8% of women self-described as sexually abused reported remembering the abuse with the help of a therapist or other professional person. Conclusions: The findings indicate that, among women who report CSA, forgetting and subsequently remembering abuse experiences is not uncommon. According to the women surveyed, however, very few (1.8%) of those who felt abused recovered memories of CSA with help from therapists or other professionals. As one of the few studies of CSA memories in a nationally representative sample, this study suggests that therapist-assisted recall is not a major source of CSA memories among women in the US general population.