Fundamental dietary patterns and their correlates among US whites.

A social history of eating habits in the United States (1) suggests that there are 2 fundamental US dietary patterns. The first, characterized by beef or pork, white flour bread, and potato consumption , is grounded in British culinary heritage. The second, characterized by fruits and vegetables consumed as "pro-tective" foods, that is, to avoid illness, is a result of the development of nutrition science, the growth of food and advertis-ingindustries, and efforts of World War I food conservation programs. To confirm the occurrence of these 2 dietary patterns and their sociodemographic and lifestyle correlates, we used principal components analysis on data collected from white participants in a large, national US survey. StUdy Population Subjects were participants in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted from 1988 to 1994. The survey followed a 4-stage probability sampling design to represent the US population over the age of 2 months, focusing primarily on non-Hispanic whites, African-Americans, and Mexican-Americans (2). Because of potential dietary pattern differences across age and ethnic groups, we limited analyses to 5,794 white, US-born participants aged 20 to 74 years. Household interviews included a 62-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) on the previous month's intake. Other interview information included age, highest school grade completed, family income, longest-held type of work, attempted weight loss during the past 12 months, current smoking status, vitamin/supple-ment use during the past month, frequency of breakfast consumption, frequency ofadding salt to food at the table, physical activity, and number of days participants consumed at least 5 alcoholic beverages in 1 day during the past 12 months. Poverty-income ratio was calculated as the ratio of family income to a Census (3), with poverty-income ~1 considered at or below poverty level. Occupations were considered working class ifthey fell into any 1 of 8 categories (4): clerical! administrative support; sales; private household service; other service except protective; precision production, craft, and repair; machine operators, assem-blers, and inspectors; transportation or material moving; and handlers, equipment cleaners, and laborers. Residences were categorized into 1 of 4 geographic regions: Northeast, Midwest, South, and West (3). Urban residence was defined as location in the central or fringe counties of metropolitan areas with a population ~1 million (3). Physical activity level was assessed by summing frequencies during the past month of walking a mile or more at a time without stopping, of 7 leisure-time activities (running, biking, swimming, aerobics, dancing, gardening or …