title: The diet of girls and young women at the beginning of the century.
abstract: Recent research has shown that retarded growth during fetal life and infancy is linked to the development of cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease and stroke) in adult life. Maternal nutrition has an important effect on early growth and the diets of young women may therefore influence cardiovascular disease in the next generation. Samples of women aged 80 years and over were interviewed in six areas of England and Wales with different cardiovascular death rates. The women, 281 in total, were asked about their diets when they were aged 10 to 15 years. Those who grew up in areas which now have low cardiovascular mortality tended to eat four meals a day rather than three, to live in households which had gardens, kept hens or livestock, and to go into domestic service, where diets were generally good. Those who grew up in areas which now have high cardiovascular mortality tended to eat less red meat, to live in houses without gardens, to enter industrial occupations and have higher fertility rates.
authors.affiliation: MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital.
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Ariouat
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Barker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality*; D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004034:Diet Surveys; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005317:Fetal Growth Retardation / Q000150:complications; D006801:Humans; D007227:Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008429:Maternal Welfare; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D009790:Occupations; D011897:Random Allocation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014852:Wales / Q000453:epidemiology; D016387:Women's Health