Socioeconomic differences in the consumption of vegetables, fruit and fruit juices - The influence of psychosocial factors

Background: The aim was to investigate whether social network and social su pport factors can explain socioeconomic differences in the risk of consumin g low amounts of vegetables, fruit and fruit juices. Methods: The Malmo Die t and Cancer Study was a prospective cohort study, The present cross-sectio nal study examined data from a subpopulation of 11,837 individuals that com pleted baseline examinations in 1992-1994, Dietary habits were assessed usi ng a modified diet history method, and socioeconomic and social network fac tors were measured with a structured questionnaire. Low consumption was def ined as the lowest consumption quartile for vegetables and fruit, while fru it juice consumption was dichotomised to separate users from non-users. Res ults: Socioeconomic differences were most pronounced regarding the consumpt ion of vegetables and fruit juices, For both sexes, unskilled manual worker s had a twice as high risk of low vegetable and fruit juice consumption as higher non-manual employees. No socioeconomic differences in fruit consumpt ion were observed for men, and only moderate differences for women with a h igher consumption in higher socioeconomic groups. When the psychosocial var iables were introduced in the multivariate model, social participation mode rately reduced the socioeconomic differences in vegetable consumption, and the female socioeconomic differences in fruit consumption, but had no effec t on the socioeconomic differences in fruit juice consumption, The other ps ychosocial variables had no effect on the socioeconomic differences. Conclu sion: Considerable socioeconomic differences in vegetable, fruit and fruit juice consumption were observed. Social participation seemed to be a strong determinant for these food choices. However, this effect was largely indep endent of the socioeconomic differences.