Socio Economic Determinants of Household Dietary Patterns: A Case Study in Anuradhapura Municipal Council Area

Abstract

Dietary patterns show a significant impact on non-communicable diseases while the socio economic factors shape dietary patterns differently based on the situation. This study attempted to analyze the socio economic determinants of household dietary patterns. A questionnaire survey was conducted in Anuradhapura Municipal council area to collect dietary and socio economic data from 60 households selected based on the cluster sampling. The Principle component analysis was applied to define the dietary patterns. Logistic analysis was conducted including the dietary patterns and the socio economic factors as dependent and independent variables, respectively to measure the association in between them. The study identified three dietary patterns with unique food behaviors. Healthy patterns were characterized by high consumption of rice, pulses, tubers, fish and fruits. The unhealthy pattern was rich with wheat, meats, dairy foods, oils and confectionaries. Moreover, 31.7% families followed the unhealthy pattern whereas 68.3% favored the other. Small families preferred unhealthy diets than the large families. With compared to Muslims, Sinhalese were less favor the unhealthy diets. Tamils had no consistent association with any pattern. Both government and self-employees favored the healthy diets compared to private sector employees. The education level had no significant association with diet patterns whereas income was inversely associated with the unhealthy pattern. The results concluded the unhealthy diet pattern is prominent among the families with more children, private employments, low incomes and the Muslim ethnicity while families with few children, self-employments, government jobs, high incomes and Sinhala ethnicity prefer healthy diets.