Table 5.
Mean differences in the dietary covariates by level of milk fat consumed by U.S. adults.
| Level of milk fat typically consumed | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Covariate | Abstainer (mean ± SE) |
Full-fat (mean ± SE) |
2% (mean ± SE) |
1% (mean ± SE) |
Nonfat (mean ± SE) |
F | P |
| Protein (g/kg) | 0.93a ± 0.03 | 1.04b,c ± 0.02 | 0.99b ± 0.02 | 1.02b,c ± 0.04 | 1.07c ± 0.03 | 12.2 | <0.0001 |
| Fat (% kcal) | 31.2a ± 0.82 | 32.6b ± 0.60 | 32.8b ± 0.76 | 32.1a,b ± 0.73 | 29.5c ± 0.75 | 28.9 | <0.0001 |
| Sat. fat (% kcal) | 9.1a ± 0.26 | 10.8b ± 0.23 | 10.5b ± 0.28 | 10.1c ± 0.29 | 8.8a ± 0.30 | 49.8 | <0.0001 |
| Fiber (g/1000 kcal) | 8.6a ± 0.26 | 7.1b ± 0.22 | 8.0c ± 0.30 | 9.0a ± 0.25 | 9.9d ± 0.27 | 64.1 | <0.0001 |
SE is the standard error of the mean. Protein (g/kg) refers to grams of protein intake per kilogram body weight. Fat (% kcal) represents the percentage of total energy derived from dietary fat. Sat. Fat (% kcal) refers to the percentage of total energy derived from saturated fat. Fiber (g/1000 kcal) represents the number of grams of fiber consumed per day per 1000 kcal. The nonfat milk category also included skim milk and 0.5% milk. Means on each row were adjusted for differences in the demographic variables. a,b,c,dMeans on the same row with the same superscript letter are not statistically different (P > 0.05). On the row for fiber intake, the mean difference between abstainers and adults who drank 2% milk was borderline significant (P = 0.0857). On the row for fat (% kcal), the difference between milk abstainers and those drinking nonfat milk was borderline significant (P = 0.0920). The five levels of milk fat consumption were defined as follows: abstainer: participants who never consumed milk (n = 814, 14.0%); full-fat: adults who consumed full-fat milk (n = 2094, 35.9%); 2%: subjects who usually consumed 2% milk (n = 1650, 28.3%); 1%: individuals who consumed 1% milk (n = 505, 8.7%); and nonfat: participants who typically consumed nonfat, skim, or 0.5% milk (n = 771, 13.2%). The number of subjects in each category above does not take into account the sample weights assigned to each subject. However, the percentage (%) following the sample size shows the proportion of subjects in the milk fat category with the NHANES sample weights applied. The % values are more meaningful than the number of subjects (n) because the percentages represent the proportion of the U.S. adult population that fall within each milk fat category.