The Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health noted in 1988 that 2/3 of all deaths are due to diseases associated with diet. If you don't drive drunk and you don't smoke, eating more fruits and vegetables will probably do more to assure a long healthy life than any other thing you can do.
The National Cancer Institute recommends that you eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. People who do have less than 1/2 of the chance of getting cancer than those who don't.
The goal of the national 5 A Day Program is initially to increase awareness of diet and health relationships, and ultimately to increase per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables from 2.5 servings a day to 5 servings a day by the year 2000. Canada has a goal of 8 a day and is closer to meeting it than we are to our 5 a day. Children are failing very badly.
A study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that 50% of children ate less than one serving of fruit a day, and 30% ate less than one serving of vegetables.