What Can Dietary Patterns Tell Us about the Nutrition Transition and Environmental Sustainability of Diets in Uganda?

Abstract

Uganda is undergoing dietary transition, with possible environmental sustainability and health implications, particularly for women. To explore evidence for dietary transitions and identify how environmentally sustainable women’s dietary patterns are, principal component analysis was performed on dietary data collected using a 24 h recall during the Uganda Food Consumption Survey (n = 957). Four dietary patterns explained 23.6% of the variance. The “traditional, high-fat, medium environmental impact” pattern was characterized by high intakes of nuts/seeds, fats, oils and spreads, fish and boiled vegetables. High intakes of bread and buns, rice and pasta, tea and sugar characterized the “transitioning, processed, low environmental impact’ pattern. The ‘plant-based, low environmental impact” pattern was associated with high intakes of legumes, boiled roots/tubers, boiled traditional vegetables, fresh fruit and fried traditional cereals. High intakes of red/organ meats, chicken, and soups characterized the “animal-based high environmental impact” pattern. Urban residence was positively associated with “transitioning, processed, low environmental impact” (β = 1.19; 1.06, 1.32) and “animal-based high environmental impact” (β = 0.45; 0.28, 0.61) patterns; but negatively associated with the “plant-based low environmental impact” pattern (β= −0.49; −0.62, −0.37). A traditional, high-fat dietary pattern with medium environmental impact persists in both contexts. These findings provide some evidence that urban women’s diets are transitioning.

Dietary Patterns as Characterized by Food Processing Levels and Their Association with the Health Outcomes of Rural Women in East Africa

“…For each food group under the four classifications, the amount of intake (in grams) was obtained by summing up the intake amount of all food items identified under that food group. Intake quantity (in grams) per food group was then standardized—mean = 0 and standard deviation = 1—to account for large variances that may exist across the food groups [ 18 ].…”

“…The standardized values were fed into the PCA tool as primary data to extract patterns. Varimax with Kaiser Normalization was used as a rotation method to extract patterns that are not correlated to each other, but rather correlations between food groups that describe patterns [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. After comparison, the 11-food grouping was chosen for Tanzania, Uganda, and East Africa, while the 12-food grouping was selected for Kenya.…”

“…Thus far, PCA has been a well-established statistical tool for approximating patterns to describe the diet behavior of a population. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), for example, studies on patterns and their linkage to different health outcomes have been mostly PCA-driven studies [ 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ].…”

Food Waste on Foodservice: An Overview through the Perspective of Sustainable Dimensions

“…If the waste of plant foods is considerably greater than animal products, the impact may be greater. Thus, the impacts and changes necessary to reduce the impact generated by FW should be evaluated, considering all variables [ 57 , 58 ].…”

Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability Indicators Applied to Food Services: A Systematic Review

“…In a study carried out in Uganda which assessed women's dietary patterns and their relationship to sustainability by assessing the environmental and economic impact caused by food production found that high intake of meat, chicken, and soup was the dietary profile with greater impact. The consumption of legumes, roots, tubers, vegetables, and fresh fruits was considered the dietary pattern with the least environmental and economic impact [59]. It is important to highlight that multiple factors influence fruit and vegetable ingestion, including economic barriers, inadequate nutrition knowledge and awareness, food preferences and attitudes, and cultural factors.…”