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Change in diet over time in US Chinese immigrant women
Author(s) -
Tseng Marilyn
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.744.3
Subject(s) - medicine , longitudinal study , immigration , demography , gerontology , physiology , endocrinology , zoology , biology , archaeology , pathology , sociology , history
The assumption that US immigrants’ diets become more westernized over time has not been tested in longitudinal data. We examined dietary changes over time in a sample of healthy, premenopausal Chinese immigrant women recruited 11/05–4/08 into a Philadelphia study of diet and breast cancer risk. Participants provided four days of dietary recalls and sociodemographic and other information. In preliminary analyses including 183 women over an average followup of two years, mean energy intake increased by 95 kcals (p=0.005), energy density increased by 14% (p<0.0001), % energy from fat increased from 23.8% to 25.0% (p=0.04), cholesterol intake increased by 27 mg (p=0.01), and beef intake increased from an average of 1.0 to 1.8 servings per week (p=0.03). Level of education reported at baseline predicted change in energy intake: average energy intake increased by 160 kcal/day among women with less than 9 years of schooling but decreased by 129 kcal/day among women with at least some college education. Patterns were similar but not significant for energy density and intake of cholesterol and beef. These findings are the first, to our knowledge, to demonstrate deleterious changes in diet over time in a longitudinal sample of Chinese immigrants. Predictors of dietary change have yet to be identified but may be helpful in developing and targeting health promotion efforts.