Alcohol Consumption and Dietary Practices in the U.S. Population: 1987 and 1992.

Research indicates that the link between alcohol and poor nutrition is highly complex. Alcohol consumption is known to disrupt nutritional status via several mechanisms. One mechanism by which alcohol may affect nutrition is by inducing changes in dietary practices. Findings are presented based on 2 years of data from a national survey of health-related activities. The relationship between alcohol consumption and dietary practices-such as types of food consumed, whether vitamins were taken, belief that diet influences health, and frequency of eating out-is examined. The results show that associations exist between alcohol and diet after controlling for demographic and health variables. These findings have important implications for understanding the interaction between alcohol intake and nutritional status and the effect of this interaction on overall health. KEY WORDS: AOD consumption; nutrition; diet; health related behavior; state of health; survey; AOD use pattern; comparative study; fats; carbohydrates; vitamins; salts; mineral nutrients his Epidemiologic Bulletin examines alcohol consumption and dietary practices in the general U.S. population for the years 1987 and 1992. Previous research has indicated that many complex links exist between alcohol and nutrition that affect overall physiologic functioning and health. Alcohol consumption may lead to the disruption of nutritional status via several mechanisms. One mechanism by which alcohol can affect nutritional status is in the body's absorption, metabolism, and utilization of vitamins, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Another mechanism by which alcohol may affect nutritional status is in behavioral changes induced when alcohol consumption affects a person's ability to afford both alcohol and food or when alcohol replaces the preference or need for other important foods in the diet. The purpose of the current research is to investigate the latter mechanism by examining selected dietary behaviors and beliefs associated with varying levels of alcohol consumption in a national sample of men and women. Data for this analysis were extracted from 2 study years of cancer risk factors from the Epidemiology Study (ES) section of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The study years chosen were 1987 and 1992. The NHIS is a personal interview household survey conducted on a nationwide sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Since 1957 NCHS has conducted the survey annually. It includes a "core" set of questions on health-related variables that generally change little from year to year and supplements that can vary annually. The ES contains questions on the consumption frequency of a wide variety of different foods and beverages, including beer, wine, and liquor. Also included in the ES are questions on vitamin and mineral intake and food knowledge. The ES sample consists of adults age 18 and older randomly selected from the NHIS sample. One adult per family is selected to answer questions on the ES portion of the NHIS. The sample size of the 1987 ES was 22,080 household respondents and the sample size of the 1992 ES was 12,005 household respondents (NCHS 1988, 1994). BACKGROUND AND UNDERSTANDING A previous analysis of diet and alcohol consumption was conducted on the 1987 ES of the NHIS for an Epidemiologic Bulletin published in Alcohol Health & Research World in 1989. The results of these data indicated that heavier drinkers (i.e., those who reported that they drank 14 or more drinks per week) were more likely than other groups of drinkers and nondrinkers to report beliefs and behaviors that may place them at greater health-related risk resulting from poor diet (Brooks et al. 1989). Heavier drinkers were more likely to report a diet high in fat and low in fiber and to believe that diet has little effect on health. The authors concluded that these results were preliminary and that further analysis of the data was necessary before definitive conclusions could be made. …