Table 1.
Participant characteristics by reported childhood meat eating (figures given as % unless indicated)
| Men | Women | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Almost daily (n = 507) | About once a week (n = 1,828) | About once a month (n = 1,706) | Yearly/Never (n = 882) | Overall (n = 4,923) | P-value | Almost daily (n = 1,607) | About once a week (n = 5,066) | About once a month (n = 4,433) | Yearly/Never (n = 2,407) | Overall (n = 13,513) | P-value | ||
| Age group (years) | ≥75 | 5.3 | 3.1 | 4.6 | 7.3 | 4.6 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 2.0 | 4.7 | 2.3 | ||
| 70–74 | 13.6 | 11.2 | 14.2 | 20.9 | 14.2 | 6.9 | 6.2 | 8.3 | 13.3 | 8.2 | |||
| 65–69 | 20.1 | 19.5 | 20.9 | 26.0 | 21.2 | 11.1 | 11.0 | 12.5 | 19.6 | 13.0 | |||
| 60–64 | 23.7 | 27.0 | 24.3 | 21.8 | 24.8 | 15.3 | 14.2 | 16.7 | 19.2 | 16.0 | |||
| 55–59 | 22.1 | 23.4 | 22.7 | 18.3 | 22.1 | 24.0 | 28.6 | 28.2 | 24.9 | 27.3 | |||
| 50 ≤ 54 | 15.2 | 15.8 | 13.3 | 5.8 | 13.0 | <0.001 | 40.3 | 38.8 | 32.3 | 18.2 | 33.1 | <0.001 | |
| Age of menarche (years) | – | – | – | – | – | – | 14.4 (1.9) | 14.6 (1.9) | 15.1(2.1) | 15.8 (2.2) | 14.9 (2.1) | <0.001 | |
| Height (cm) | 165.3 (6.1) | 165.0 (5.8) | 164.4 (5.8) | 163.8 (5.8) | 164.6 (5.9) | <0.001 | 154.4 (5.5) | 154.4 (5.3) | 154.0 (5.3) | 153.1 (5.5) | 154.1 (5.4) | <0.001 | |
| Highest educational attainment a | <primary | 1.0 | 0.8 | 3.1 | 4.7 | 2.3 | 3.4 | 5.5 | 11.7 | 22.8 | 10.4 | ||
| Primary ~ 0–6 years | 18.2 | 21.2 | 28.0 | 36.5 | 26.0 | 22.6 | 26.4 | 36.7 | 44.1 | 32.5 | |||
| Junior middle ~ 7–10 years | 26.8 | 32.8 | 30.1 | 27.9 | 30.4 | 29.4 | 30.1 | 27.3 | 18.4 | 27.0 | |||
| ≥senior middle 10+ years | 54.0 | 45.2 | 38.9 | 31.0 | 41.4 | <0.001 | 44.7 | 38.0 | 24.4 | 14.8 | 30.2 | <0.001 | |
| Childhood SEPb | Low | 32.9 | 55.6 | 75.9 | 90.3 | 66.5 | 24.0 | 45.4 | 67.7 | 86.1 | 57.4 | ||
| Medium | 21.3 | 22.8 | 14.4 | 6.1 | 16.7 | 23.5 | 25.2 | 19.2 | 9.0 | 20.1 | |||
| High | 45.8 | 21.6 | 9.8 | 3.6 | 16.8 | <0.001 | 52.5 | 29.4 | 13.2 | 4.9 | 22.5 | <0.001 | |
| Occupational type | Manualc | 38.5 | 37.0 | 41.7 | 41.7 | 39.6 | 38.0 | 44.3 | 53.5 | 56.0 | 48.7 | ||
| Non-manual | 42.6 | 43.0 | 38.9 | 41.0 | 41.2 | 42.9 | 38.1 | 31.7 | 32.9 | 35.6 | |||
| Other | 18.9 | 20.0 | 19.5 | 17.2 | 19.2 | 0.05 | 19.0 | 17.7 | 14.8 | 11.1 | 15.7 | <0.001 | |
| Current annual personal income (8Yuan = 1USD) | ≤10,000 Yuan | 21.7 | 21.2 | 25.2 | 26.0 | 23.5 | 22.3 | 27.0 | 37.5 | 46.2 | 33.3 | ||
| 10–15,000 Yuan | 36.9 | 37.2 | 36.4 | 39.0 | 37.2 | 55.2 | 54.1 | 47.5 | 37.1 | 49.0 | |||
| >15,000 Yuan | 37.5 | 36.1 | 33.4 | 31.6 | 34.5 | 20.7 | 16.5 | 11.5 | 10.5 | 14.3 | |||
| Don’t know | 3.9 | 5.5 | 5.0 | 3.4 | 4.8 | 0.01 | 1.7 | 2.4 | 3.5 | 6.2 | 3.4 | <0.001 | |
| Current Physical activity (IPAQ-C)d | Inactive | 12.4 | 12.3 | 13.8 | 8.5 | 12.2 | 10.8 | 12.0 | 12.1 | 9.2 | 11.4 | ||
| Moderate | 42.8 | 50.0 | 46.0 | 46.2 | 47.2 | 40.6 | 42.5 | 44.0 | 39.8 | 42.3 | |||
| High | 44.8 | 37.7 | 40.2 | 45.4 | 40.7 | <0.001 | 48.5 | 45.5 | 43.9 | 51.1 | 46.3 | <0.001 | |
| Smoking status | Never | 34.9 | 41.4 | 37.7 | 36.1 | 38.5 | 97.6 | 97.7 | 97.5 | 96.4 | 97.4 | ||
| Ex-smoker | 28.2 | 25.8 | 28.8 | 31.2 | 28.1 | 1.1 | 0.8 | 1.3 | 1.9 | 1.2 | |||
| Current | 36.9 | 32.8 | 33.5 | 32.8 | 33.4 | 0.01 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 1.8 | 1.4 | <0.001 | |
| Alcohol usee | Never | 40.7 | 44.6 | 46.9 | 43.0 | 44.7 | 65.6 | 68.3 | 72.2 | 70.2 | 69.9 | ||
| Ex-drinker | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.8 | 5.8 | 4.2 | 2.1 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 2.7 | 1.8 | |||
| Current | 55.5 | 51.5 | 49.4 | 51.2 | 51.1 | 0.03 | 32.4 | 30.1 | 26.3 | 27.1 | 28.6 | <0.001 | |
a These correspond approximately to the following total number of years of schooling, <primary is no formal education, primary school is 0–6 years, junior middle is 7–9 years, and ≥senior middle is 10 or more years
b These correspond to parental possession of none (low), 1–2 (medium) and 3 (high) of: sewing machine, watch and bicycle
c Worker, farmer or seller
d High: Vigorous activity at least 3 days a week achieving at least 1,500 MET minutes per week or activity on 7 days of the week achieving at least 3,000 MET minutes per week; Moderate: 3 or more days of vigorous activity of at least 20 min per day OR 5 or more days of moderate-intensity activity or walking of at least 30 min per day OR 5 or more days of any combination of walking, moderate-intensity or vigorous intensity activities achieving a minimum of at least 600 MET-min/week; Inactive: does not report moderate or high activity levels. MET: Metabolic equivalent – weighting system whereby physical activities can be assessed as a single unit, e.g. sitting = 1MET; walking = 3.3MET
e An additional149 participants were missing data on alcohol use, n = 18,287 overall