17 percent of U.S. elderly have good diet

ATLANTA, May 19 (UPI) -- Only 17 percent of U.S. adults age 60 and over consume a "good" quality diet, researchers say.

A report presents Healthy Eating Index scores for U.S. adults, 60 years of age and over, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2002 and examines the association between the Healthy Eating Index scores and sex, age, race and ethnicity, education, smoking status, tooth retention, self-reported health and body mass index.

The report also finds that 72 percent of older U.S. adults meet the guidelines for cholesterol intake, while 56 percent meet the recommendation for diet variety and fewer than one-third meet the recommendations for five food groups.

Males have higher scores for some components but females have higher scores for others. Non-Hispanic whites usually have the highest scores and non-Hispanic blacks had the lowest scores, while adults with more years of education usually have higher scores but smokers usually had lower scores, the report says.

People who rated their health as fair or poor generally ate fewer servings of fruits and vegetables, ate a less varied diet and have a poorer quality diet than people with teeth or who rated their health higher.