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How often do meat-eating teenagers turn to fast food? More often than their vegetarian peers, according to a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota.

The group studied more than 4,500 teen-aged boys and girls--with a median age of 15--from 31 middle and high schools in Minnesota and compared the students' diets to the Healthy People 2010 recommendations, dietary targets issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Dietary intake was assessed by the "Youth and Adolescent Food Frequency Questionnaire," which asked whether foods such as eggs, dairy, chicken and fish were excluded. Nearly 6 percent of the students described themselves as vegetarian.

The results? The vegetarian teen-agers were much more likely than their carnivorous counterparts to meet the Healthy People 2010 objectives: getting less than 30 percent of one's daily calories from fat and less than 10 percent from saturated fat, and eating more than two servings of fruit and more than three servings of vegetables daily.

"Vegetarian adolescents were more than twice as likely to eat less than 30 percent of their calories from fat and nearly three times more likely to eat less than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat," the researchers wrote. "They were also 1.4 to two times more likely to eat two or more servings of fruit, three or more servings of vegetables and five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily."

The researchers also found that vegetarian teens got more iron, vitamin A, folate and fiber in their diets and drank more diet soda and caffeinated beverages. By contrast, they consumed less vitamin [B.sub.12]. Neither group of students consumed enough calcium daily.

The study was published in the May 2002 issue of Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

# posted by Medical Information : 4:34 AM