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You are What you Read? Fruit and Vegetable MyPyramid Recommendations are Underrepresented in Sunday Sales Circulars
Author(s) -
Kranz Sibylle,
Johns Lisa,
Johnson L,
Scheett Angela,
Hoverson Bonita,
Payne Collin
Publication year - 2011
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.25.1_supplement.989.25
Subject(s) - fruit juice , food science , population , consumption (sociology) , advertising , toxicology , medicine , chemistry , biology , business , environmental health , art , aesthetics
Population studies consistently show that Americans fail to meet MyPyramid recommendations for fruits (whole, not juice) and vegetables. Some age and gender groups approach recommendations for fruit intake (mostly through consumption of fruit juice) and most Americans underconsume vegetables. We investigated potential causes for the consistent lack of fruit and vegetable intake by examining a local grocery store chain's weekly, printed Sunday advertisements. Fruits and vegetables were categorized as canned, dried, fresh, fried, or frozen. Results showed that of the total food items advertised (n=9,216), vegetables ads (n=818) accounted for 6.8–10.3% of all ads every month. The types of vegetables advertised during the year were: 27.9% canned, 2.3% dried, 50.6% fresh, 1.1% fried, and 18.1% frozen. No seasonal pattern was observed. In a given month, the most frequent ad was for fresh vegetables (59%). In contrast, ads for fruits (n=631) represented 6.1–7.8% of total ads with 41.8% canned, 2.8% dried, 51.0% fresh, and 4.3% frozen. More ads were observed for fresh fruits in June, July, and August (highest observed frequency: 65.3%). Overall, we found that two of the most underconsumed food groups in the US are dramatically underrepresented in weekly advertisement flyers, which might contribute to low consumption.