HHS HealthBeat - Girls’ DASH for better weight

It seems that the authors of this 'study' obtained access to NIH grants by making a commonsense and fairly mundane public health message (eating fruit and vegetables is good for you) gender specific. Link here. Emphasis added:

'From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Teenage girls shouldn’t have to worry about hypertension. But an eating pattern created to control hypertension seems to help them prevent excess weight gain, too.

At Boston University Medical Center, Jonathan Berz looked at 10 years of national survey data on about 2,300 girls, starting at age 9.

Berz says girls who ate closer to the National Institutes of Health’s DASH plan – which stands for Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension – tended to gain less weight. But he says:

``This sample of American girls were not eating nearly enough fruits and vegetables. And increasing the amount of these foods, plus whole grains and low-fat dairy, is likely to result in less weight gain.’’ (9 seconds)

The study in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: July 13, 2011'