Narrator: This is Science Today. A common finding in most nutrition studies is those with lower incomes are not as properly nourished as those with higher incomes. But Joanne Ikeda, a nutritionist at the University of California, Berkeley found different results in her study on the diets of three generations of African-American women.

Ikeda: People at very low income levels have poorer diet quality, just because they don't have enough money to buy an adequate diet. In this study, that held true for the grandmothers and for the daughters. But it did not show true for the middle generation - that is, the mothers. It turned out that the higher income mothers actually had the poorer diets.

Narrator: One reason may be these working moms lack the time to cook and may just grab what they can outside the home.

Ikeda: As a matter of fact, one of their biggest sources of calories is french fries. So there probably is a lot of eating at fast food restaurants.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.