Despite recent national initiatives to encourage healthy eating habits, teens in middle adolescence are eating fewer fruits and vegetables than in 1999, a new study reveals. And the situation only worsens as teens get older.

“Fruit and vegetable intake is important for the prevention of future chronic disease,” said lead investigator and registered dietitian Nicole Larson, M.P.H. “So it’s important to know whether intakes of teens are approaching national objectives for fruit and vegetable consumption.”

Larson and colleagues from the University of Minnesota undertook the study to examine whether or not teens in the state were increasing their intake of fruits and vegetables as recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2010 objectives and Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The study, part of a larger initiative on factors influencing eating habits of adolescents, gathered information about fruit and vegetable intake among 944 boys and 1,161 girls in 1999 and again in 2004.

The study appears in the February issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

During the transition from middle school or junior high to high school, teens decreased their intake of fruits and vegetables by almost one serving per day, Larson and colleagues found, from roughly four servings to three servings for girls and roughly two and a half to fewer than two servings for boys.

They also found that from high school to early adulthood, the teens decreased their consumption by almost the same amount.

The researchers also compared consumption of fruits and vegetables between one group of middle adolescents in 1999 and another in 2004. They found that mid-adolescent girls in 2004 consumed almost one serving per day less than girls the same age in 1999. Mid-adolescent boys were also eating about a half a serving less of fruits and vegetables in 2004 than in 1999.

“This is giving us the message that we need new and enhanced efforts to increase fruit and vegetable intake that we haven’t been doing in the past,” Larson said.

Karen Glanz, Ph.D., said of the results, “I was surprised by the magnitude of the reduction in fruit and vegetable consumption. I wasn’t surprised that there would be a reduction because of the lifestyle of today’s teens.” Glanz, a professor and research scholar at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, was not associated with the study.

Glanz cited the increase over the last 10 to 15 years in the amount, variety and availability of processed and fast food as a major cause of the trend toward less healthy food choices among adolescents.

While both Larson and Glanz say there’s little research investigating exactly why adolescents might be choosing to eat fewer fruits and vegetables, they both agree that just educating teens about healthy food choices is not enough.

“Teaching adolescents that fruits and vegetables are healthy isn’t going to help — they already know that,” Glanz said.

“We need to address things going on in the environment, in the community or at home to help adolescents increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables,” Larson said.

Environmental interventions could include increasing the availability and palatability of fruit and vegetables at school, in restaurants, and at home and decreasing the availability of less healthy, highly palatable foods. And research shows that more frequent family meals can help adolescents eat more healthfully.

“Parental and family attitudes are very important,” Larson said.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine: Contact the editorial office at (858) 457-7292.

Larson NI, et al. Trends in adolescent fruit and vegetable consumption, 1999-2004: Project EAT. Am J Prev Med 32(2), 2007.

Source: Health Behavior News Service