Does a Low Glycaemic Index (GI) Diet Cost More during Pregnancy?

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the monetary cost of dietary change among pregnant women before and after receiving low glycaemic index (GI) dietary advice. The pregnant women in this study were a subgroup of participants in the Pregnancy and Glycaemic Index Outcomes (PREGGIO) study. Twenty women from the low GI dietary advice group, who had completed their pregnancies, were randomly chosen. All these women had completed three day food records at 12–16 weeks and again around 36 weeks of gestation. Consumer food prices were applied to recorded dietary intake data. The mean ± SD GI of the diet reduced from 55.1 ± 4.3 to 51.6 ± 3.9 (p = 0.003). The daily cost of the diet (AUD) was 9.1 ± 2.7 at enrolment and 9.5 ± 2.1 prior to delivery was not significantly different (p = 0.52). There were also no significant differences in the daily energy intake (p = 0.2) or the daily cost per MJ (p = 0.16). Women were able to follow low GI dietary advice during pregnancy with no significant increase in the daily costs.

Can Families Eat Better Without Spending More? Improving Diet Quality Does Not Increase Diet Cost in a Randomized Clinical Trial among Youth with Type 1 Diabetes and Their Parents

“…Previous support for a positive association of diet quality and cost has come from cross-sectional research, much of which assesses energy cost rather than daily diet cost, and for which the overall effect attributable to diet quality is small 20 . Only a small body of intervention research has examined the effect on cost of changes in diet quality 32–35 ; these studies and the current analysis all find no increase in diet cost in association with improved diet quality. Additionally, we observed an inverse association of change in diet cost with change in WPFD among parents.…”

“…Diet cost was estimated using methods consistent with previous research 32–35 . Price information from two online national supermarkets common to the study location was recorded and averaged for each food component reported (approximately 1600 items), except that prices for items reported from a named store or restaurant were obtained from these retail outlets.…”

“…Intervention studies are needed in order to inform the causality of the associations shown in observational research. Relatively fewer prospective studies suggest that while participants may initially anticipate cost to be a barrier 30 improvements in diet can occur without incurring additional costs 31–35 . However, these studies are limited by small sample size 33, 35 , lack of a control group 33, 35 , and relatively short follow-up 33 .…”

“…Relatively fewer prospective studies suggest that while participants may initially anticipate cost to be a barrier 30 improvements in diet can occur without incurring additional costs 31–35 . However, these studies are limited by small sample size 33, 35 , lack of a control group 33, 35 , and relatively short follow-up 33 . The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of changing diet quality on diet cost in youth with type 1 diabetes and parents participating in an 18-month randomized clinical trial of a family-based behavioral nutrition intervention previously shown to improve youth diet quality (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00999375; registered 20 October 2009) 36 .…”

Economic Costs and Benefits of Healthy Eating

“…The weight of the literature suggests that consumers who spend more on food tend to have healthier diets as meaured by the Healthy Eating Index [22,23]. On the other hand, individuals who switch to a healthier diet-such as pregnant women following a low-glycemic diet [24] or obese children undergoing dietary treatment [25]-can do so without increasing their daily dietary costs.…”