Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Mar;89(3):897-904.
doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2008.26434. Epub 2009 Jan 14.

Availability of healthy foods and dietary patterns: the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

Manuel Franco  1 , Ana V Diez-Roux, Jennifer A Nettleton, Mariana Lazo, Frederick Brancati, Benjamin Caballero, Thom Glass, Latetia V Moore
Affiliations

Availability of healthy foods and dietary patterns: the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

Manuel Franco et al. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Inadequate availability of healthy foods may be a barrier to achieving recommended diets.

Objective: The objective was to study the association between the directly measured availability of healthy foods and diet quality.

Design: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 759 participants from the Baltimore site of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Diet was characterized by using a food-frequency questionnaire and summarized by using 2 empirically derived dietary patterns reflecting low- and high-quality diets. For each participant, the availability of healthy foods was directly assessed by using 3 measures: in all food stores within their census tract, in their closest food store, and in all food stores within 1 mile (1.6 km) of their residence.

Results: Twenty-four percent of the black participants lived in neighborhoods with a low availability of healthy food compared with 5% of white participants (P < 0.01). After adjustment for age, sex, income, and education, a lower availability of healthy foods in the tract of residence or in the closest store was associated with higher scores on the low-quality dietary pattern (P < 0.05). Less consistent associations were observed for the high-quality dietary pattern.

Conclusions: Healthy foods were less available for black participants. Low availability of healthy foods was associated with a lower-quality diet. The extent to which improvements in the availability of healthy foods results in higher-quality diets deserves further investigation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Mokdad AH, Bowman BA, Ford ES, Vinicor F, Marks JS, Koplan JP. The continuing epidemics of obesity and diabetes in the United States. JAMA 2001;286:1195–200 - PubMed
    1. Mokdad AH, Marks JS, Stroup DF, Gerberding JL. Actual causes of death in the United States, 2000. JAMA 2004;291:1238–45 - PubMed
    1. US Department of Agriculture Dietary guidelines for Americans. 6th ed Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services, 2005:1–12
    1. Sacks FM, Svetkey LP, Vollmer WM, et al. Effects on blood pressure of reduced dietary sodium and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. DASH-Sodium Collaborative Research Group. N Engl J Med 2001;344:3–10 - PubMed
    1. Appel LJ, Moore TJ, Obarzanek E, et al. A clinical trial of the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure. DASH Collaborative Research Group. N Engl J Med 1997;336:1117–24 - PubMed

Publication types