Here are the steps to formatting and labeling NHANES variables :
Value labels give a verbal description of the integer values of a variable and can make it more user-friendly. The generic form of the label define command is:
Label define label_name var_value
Label define
yesno 1 Yes 2 No
Label define age 1 "Age 20-39" 2 "Age 40-59" 3 "Age 60+"
Label define race 1 "NH white" 2 "NH black" 3
"Mexican American" 4 "Other race/ethn"
Don't forget to put double quotation marks around text with embedded blanks.
After you have defined value labels, you can associate them to selected variables using the label values command. The generic form of this command is:
Label values label_name var_name
Label values age age
Finally, label selected variables using the label variable command. User-defined labels should always be surrounded by double quotation marks. The generic form of the command is:
Label variable var_name var_text
Label variable age "Age in years"