A study into US consumption has shown that the number of consumers claiming they eat healthily increased slightly in 2009, although the same participants admitted a decrease in their daily fresh fruit and vegetable consumption in comparison to 2008.
TheGallup-Healthways Well-Being Indexshowed that 66.4 per cent of participants in the study reported eating healthily in 2009 – up slightly from 65.9 per cent in 2008.
However, the report also found that the percentage of participants who reported eating five or more fruits and vegetable for at least four days during the previous week dropped from 56.4 per cent in 2008 to 55.6 per cent in 2009.
The impact of the global recession, rapidly escalating unemployment, and a weak labour market on the consumption of fruits and vegetables is unclear, according to Gallup, but could be a substantive underlying factor in the clearly suppressed levels of fruit and vegetable consumption recorded in the first several months of 2009.
Meanwhile, Gallup said the good news for Americans seeking to improve their healthy eating habits is that the perceived affordability of fruits and vegetables is on the rise.
In 11 out of 12 months of 2009, Americans were more likely than in 2008 to say that it is easy to get affordable fruits and vegetables in the city or area where they live. For the year, an average of 91.9 per cent said this was the case compared with 89.7 per cent in 2008.
By region, Americans living in the West were more likely than those in any other area of the US to report healthy eating, according to Gallup. While healthy eating in 2009 was lowest among Midwesterners, this region saw the most improvement of all four geographic areas compared with 2008.
In comparison, the East – which was tied at the top with the West in 2008 – declined slightly during 2009, making it the only region in the US where self-reported healthy eating worsened.
The report also showed that for a second year, seniors (aged 65 and older) and Hispanics outperformed their other demographic counterparts in their reports of eating healthy.
Young adults (18- to 29-year-olds) and African Americans were again the least healthy eaters, according to their respective self-reports.
Meanwhile, Gallup said there was essentially no change in healthy eating habits between the two years for the gender, marital status, income, or education demographics.
