Published Monday April 7, 2008
Survey of eating habits reinforces ideas about men and women
ATLANTA (AP) — If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then Mars is a land where the refrigerators are stocked with meat and frozen pizza and Venus has a bounty of yogurt, fruits and vegetables, new research suggests.
A new study of adult eating habits — called the most extensive of its kind — questioned 14,000 Americans by phone. It confirmed the conventional wisdom that most men eat more meat than women do, and most women eat more fruits and vegetables.
But there were a few surprises:
• Men were much more likely to eat asparagus, brussels sprouts, peas and peanuts. They also were bigger consumers of frozen pizzas, frozen hamburgers and frozen Mexican dinners.
• Women were more likely than men to eat eggs, yogurt and fresh hamburgers.
• Men also showed a bit more of an appetite for runny eggs and undercooked hamburgers — two foods that health experts say carry a higher chance of contamination that can make you sick.
• Women were more likely than men to eat only one risky food: raw alfalfa sprouts, which in the past 15 years have been linked to several outbreaks of food poisoning.
The survey was done in 10 states, a collaboration among state and federal health officials. The results were reported last month by Dr. Beletshachew Shiferaw, an Oregon health official, at a meeting of infectious disease specialists in Atlanta.
Shiferaw said she could not explain some of the study's odder findings, such as why men seemed to eat more asparagus than women did.
She suggested the results might help public health educators better target their messages about healthy eating.
That message found fertile ground among the foodborne disease specialists, who earlier heard federal researchers report that the proportion of such outbreaks linked to leafy green vegetables has been growing:
The researchers analyzed 10,000 foodborne-illness outbreaks from 1973 through 2006. Leafy greens were blamed for about 2 percent of the outbreaks in the first decade, 4 percent in the second decade and 6 percent in the third.
That rise far outpaced the increase in Americans' consumption of greens during that time, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.
A new study of adult eating habits — called the most extensive of its kind — questioned 14,000 Americans by phone. It confirmed the conventional wisdom that most men eat more meat than women do, and most women eat more fruits and vegetables.
But there were a few surprises:
• Men were much more likely to eat asparagus, brussels sprouts, peas and peanuts. They also were bigger consumers of frozen pizzas, frozen hamburgers and frozen Mexican dinners.
• Women were more likely than men to eat eggs, yogurt and fresh hamburgers.
• Men also showed a bit more of an appetite for runny eggs and undercooked hamburgers — two foods that health experts say carry a higher chance of contamination that can make you sick.
• Women were more likely than men to eat only one risky food: raw alfalfa sprouts, which in the past 15 years have been linked to several outbreaks of food poisoning.
The survey was done in 10 states, a collaboration among state and federal health officials. The results were reported last month by Dr. Beletshachew Shiferaw, an Oregon health official, at a meeting of infectious disease specialists in Atlanta.
Shiferaw said she could not explain some of the study's odder findings, such as why men seemed to eat more asparagus than women did.
She suggested the results might help public health educators better target their messages about healthy eating.
That message found fertile ground among the foodborne disease specialists, who earlier heard federal researchers report that the proportion of such outbreaks linked to leafy green vegetables has been growing:
The researchers analyzed 10,000 foodborne-illness outbreaks from 1973 through 2006. Leafy greens were blamed for about 2 percent of the outbreaks in the first decade, 4 percent in the second decade and 6 percent in the third.
That rise far outpaced the increase in Americans' consumption of greens during that time, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.
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