More Schooling Leads to Smart Eating

(HealthDayNews) -- Your education level may influence how smart you are about eating a healthy diet.

A new study says some are eating healthier diets than they did in 1965, but college-educated people are eating healthier than high school dropouts.

That's a change from the 1960s, when college graduates, those who'd completed high school and people who hadn't finished high school all had about the same level of diet quality.

The current gap in diet between those with more education and those with less schooling may explain the large disparity in health between people in the higher and lower socioeconomic groups in the United States, researcher Barry Popkin, department of nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says in a statement.

The study appears in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Popkin and his colleagues compared the dietary habits of 6,475 people in 1965 and 9,241 people in 1994-96.

In 1965, college-educated people consumed more calcium, iron and servings of fresh fruit than less-educated people. However, the college-educated group also ate more saturated fats. In 1994-96, people with a college education ate a much healthier diet than those with less schooling.

"In general, extra years of schooling related to small upward shifts in diet quality. The highest diet quality level was found among white women who attended college and for those with income far above the poverty line," Popkin says.

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