Good diet in USA influenced by education level, not earning level of people

For healthy diet, learning level counts more than earning level

Americans are eating healthier diets than they did in 1965, but college-educated people are doing better than high school dropouts, new research indicates.

That may seem obvious, but it wasn’t the case in 1965. Then, people who had not finished high school, those who were high school graduates and those who went to college all had about the same level of diet quality.

But a more recent survey by Barry Popkin, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that while dietary quality has improved overall, those with more education now have much healthier diets.

‘In fact, the gap in diet between higher educated persons and lower educated persons may explain the large disparity in health between higher and lower socioeconomic groups in the United States,’ Popkin says.

The research is published in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Popkin emphasized that this study examined the composition of the diet, not energy intake or obesity. Read more