Matching Items (2)
Description
Background: Adequate consumption of fruit and vegetables has been shown to prevent chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and type two diabetes. The majority of Americans still consume inadequate daily servings of fruit and vegetables, which include women. Inadequate consumption of fruit and vegetables can be contributed to multiple barriers that hinder consumption in both urban and non-urban areas. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) has been shown to positively influence fruit and vegetable consumption by providing healthy foods, such as fruit and vegetables. This study aims to compare the fruit and vegetable consumption of WIC and non-WIC participants between urban and non-urban Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional, secondary analysis of a single time point from the Snuggle Bug/Acurrucadito Study, which had a sample size of (n=53) participants. The participants were separated into two groups, WIC participants, and non-WIC participants, and then further divided based on their respected RUCA code for comparison purposes. The assessment of fruit and vegetable consumption assessment derived from the participant’s 3-day food record. Results: The average consumption of fruit and vegetable consumption among participants was 3.8±2.5 servings There was an inverse relationship between WIC participation and fruit and vegetable consumption among all categories (fruit no juice -0.79, vegetables -0.32, vegetables no potato -0.32, fruit no juice and vegetables -1.1, and fruit no juice and vegetables no potato -1.1). However, none of the results were considered statistically significant. In addition, our study was unable to identify an association between fruit and vegetable consumption and locale due to the small sample size. Conclusions: There was no link observed between fruit and vegetable consumption and WIC participation. Further research of high quality is needed to confirm the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption of WIC and non-WIC participants in urban and non-urban populations.
ContributorsOrtiz, Steven Michael (Author) / Bruening, Meg (Thesis advisor) / Whisner, Corrie (Committee member) / Shepard, Christina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The Phoenix metro area has become increasingly more urbanized over the past few decades, changing the pressures on native lizards to navigate these novel environments. Due to effects such as the Urban Heat Island, decreased vegetation cover, increased temperatures, and general changes in substrate types between environments, urban lizards have a variety of unique environmental pressures acting on them compared to their traditional habitats. In this study, I examined various morphological features in the common side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) and the ornate tree lizard (Urosaurus ornatus) to determine if these novel pressures in urban environments have significantly changed the phenotypic expression of these features as compared to a non-urban environment. The morphological features examined were weight, head length and width, femur, tibia, foot, and toe length, arm, forearm, hand, and finger length, and snout-vent (SVL), tail, and total length, along with various proportional comparisons between related traits. I hypothesized that both common side-blotched lizards and ornate tree lizards would see an increase in mass and snout-vent length, an increase in tail length, and increase in head thickness, and a decrease in limb length in urban environments as compared non-urban environments. It was found that in common-side blotched lizards, while urban individuals tended to be larger in terms of length and mass, their heads tended to be proportionally shorter and thinner than non-urban individuals. In ornate tree-lizards, non-urban individuals were larger in every regard other than SVL. Both species saw a decrease in relative limb length in comparison to body length in urban environments. The trends observed in common-side blotched lizards may be explained by higher urban temperatures and novel substrates, while the trends observed in ornate tree lizards are likely due to prey availability, hunting strategy, and novel substrates.
ContributorsToledo, Jacob (Author) / Britton, Michael (Thesis director) / Bang, Christofer (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor)
Created2024-05