Dairy consumption among American children and adults: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2008 (1018.1)

Dairy foods are recommended as part of healthy diet, but little is known about recent trends in dairy consumption in the United States. We described the trend in dairy consumption from 1999 to 2008 among American children (2-19 years) and adults (20+ years). We estimated dairy consumption from a single 24-hour diet recall using the MyPyramid Equivalents Database and the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies from 5 continuous survey cycles (1999-2000 to 2007-2008) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The prevalence of dairy consumption among children stayed at about 97% over time. In 2007-2008, 41% and 20% of the children consumed 蠅2 and 蠅3 servings/day of total dairy, respectively, which was significantly lower than that in 2003-2004, but similar to the prevalence in 1999-2000 (P-quadratic<0.001). Dairy was consumed by 92% of the adults in 1999-2000 which increased to 94% by 2007-2008 (P-linear<0.01). Only 14% of adults consumed 蠅3 servings/day of total dairy in 1999-2000, whi...