Healthy dietary habits in relation to social determinants and lifestyle factors

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the importance of social status and lifestyle for dietary habits, since these factors may influence life expectancy. We studied the association of four indicators for healthy dietary habits (fruits and vegetables, fibre, fat and Hegsted score) with sex, age, socio-economic status, education, physical leisure exercise, smoking and personal attention paid to keeping a healthy diet. Data were gathered with a self-administered quantitative food-frequency questionnaire distributed to a representative sample of Norwegian men and women aged 16-79 years in a national dietary survey, of whom 3144 subjects (63 %) responded. Age and female sex were positively associated with indicators for healthy dietary habits. By separate evaluation length of education, regular physical leisure exercise and degree of attention paid to keeping a healthy diet were positively associated with all four indicators for healthy dietary habits in both sexes. Socio-economic status, location of residence and smoking habits were associated with from one to three indicators for healthy dietary habits. In a multiple regression model, age, education and location of residence together explained from 1 to 9 % of the variation (R 2 ) in the four dietary indicators. Length of education was significantly associated with three of four dietary indicators both among men and women. By including the variable 'attention paid to keeping a healthy diet' in the model, R 2 increased to between 4 and 15 % for the four dietary indicators. Length of education remained correlated to three dietary indicators among women, and one indicator among men, after adjusting for attention to healthy diet, age and location of residence. Residence in cities remained correlated to two indicators among men, but none among women, after adjusting for age, education and attention to healthy diet. In conclusion, education was associated with indicators of a healthy diet. Attention to healthy diet showed the strongest and most consistent association with all four indicators for healthy dietary habits in both sexes. This suggests that personal preferences may be just as important for having a healthy diet as social status determinants. Diet: Social status: LifestyleDietary factors such as total fat, saturated fatty acids and salt are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, whereas fibre, fruits and vegetables may decrease this risk (Department

Dietary patterns and lifestyle factors in the Norwegian EPIC cohort: The Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) study

“…Many surveys have found that people with higher education are more health conscious (Fraser et al, 2000;Greenwood et al, 2000;Johansson et al, 1999). This is consistent with what we found in the healthy group.…”

“…Other studies have found that higher education indicates a healthier lifestyle (Johansson et al, 1999;Fraser et al, 2000;Greenwood et al, 2000). However, in our study we found six different patterns representing different lifestyles.…”

“…Food choices are often associated with lifestyle and socioeconomic factors (Hjartåker & Lund, 1998;Johansson et al, 1999). In this paper, we utilized the following variables for the analysis: age, education, income, marital status, number of persons in the household, smoking, dietary supplement use (other than cod liver oil), body mass index (BMI), physical activity, and depression.…”

A systematic review of associations between environmental factors, energy and fat intakes among adults: is there evidence for environments that encourage obesogenic dietary intakes?

“…Two studies demonstrated strong direct effects between portion sizes and energy intakes 38,39 . Seasonal variations in intakes were measured in countries differing considerably in their 25 Total fat USA Shelf space occupied by healthy foods in stores Objective De Castro (1992) 26 Energy, total fat USA Number of people present during meal Subjective De Craene (1990) 27 Total fat Belgium Location of residence, marital status Subjective (both) Diehr (1993) 28 Total 31 Energy, total fat USA Weekend/weekday, season Subjective Hellerstedt (1997) 32 Total fat USA Psychological demands, job latitude, job strain Subjective Johansson (1999) 33 Total fat Norway Location of residence, household income Objective (both) McCann (1990) 34 Energy, total fat, saturated fat USA Period of high/low workload Objective Morland (2002) 35 Total fat, saturated fat USA Whether or not there were the following food stores in the residential area:…”

Multiple socio-economic circumstances and healthy food habits

“…Logistic regression analysis was used to further examine the associations between socio-economic circumstances and healthy food habits. As previous studies show that age (Johansson et al, 1999;Groth et al, 2001;Naska et al, 2006) and marital status (Roos et al, 1998;Naska et al, 2006) are associated with healthy food habits, and these two variables were adjusted for, as covariates in all models. We started by examining the covariate-adjusted associations between each socio-economic indicator and healthy food habits that is, each socio-economic indicator was first added to the model separately.…”