(BlackDoctor.org) -- Despite aggressive public campaigns urging a more healthful diet, Black and white Americans still aren't eating the recommended daily servings of fruit and vegetables, two new studies found. Since the 1990s, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans have stressed eating at least two servings of fruits and three servings of vegetables every day. But, Americans are still falling far short of that goal, according to the reports.
"We used National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys dietary data to determine the trends of fruit and vegetable consumption between 1988 and 2002," said Sarah Stark Casagrande, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and lead author of the first report.
"We found that there was no trend for increased fruit and vegetable consumption over time," she said. "Only 11 percent of U.S. adults meet the guidelines for both fruits and vegetables."
In the study, the researchers collected data on 14,997 adults from 1988 to 1994, and 8,910 adults from 1999 to 2002.
Casagrande's team also found that 62 percent of the study participants didn't eat any fruit daily, and 25 percent didn't eat vegetables daily. Overall, there was no improvement in Americans' fruit consumption, and there was a small decrease in vegetable intake during the study period.
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