Dietary diversity score is related to obesity and abdominal adiposity among Iranian female youth

Abstract

Objective: To assess the relationship between diet and disease, consideration of whole-diet indices may be more informative than single-nutrient intake. The present study was conducted to report the relationship among dietary diversity score (DDS), obesity and abdominal adiposity among female university students. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Isfahan, Iran. Subjects: A representative sample of 289 healthy female students aged 18-28 years was selected randomly from Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Usual dietary intake was assessed using a validated semi-quantitative FFQ. DDS was calculated according to the scoring of the five food groups based on the US Department of Agriculture Food Guide Pyramid. This is a score of diet variety, and shows the diversity of the consumed diet. Participants were categorised on the basis of quartile cut-off points of DDS. Potential confounders such as age, total energy intake and physical activity were considered in all the analyses. Results: The means (SD) of BMI and waist circumference were 25?9 (SD 5?1) kg/m 2 and 85?5 (SD 14) cm, respectively. The probability of obesity decreased with quartiles of DDS (OR among quartiles: 1?00, 0?41, 0?31 and 0?21, P 5 0?03; this was the same for abdominal adiposity: 1?00, 0?55, 0?36 and 0?21, P 5 0?02). Those in the lowest quartile of the DDS had the highest risk for being overweight. Conclusions: There were inverse associations among DDS, obesity and abdominal adiposity among the female students of Isfahan University. Further prospective investigations are needed to confirm this finding.

Dietary diversity score and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

“…Savy et al [32][33][34] reported the association between DDS and BMI or obesity in three publications in the same sample; therefore, the study with the largest sample size was included for analysis. 32 Azadbakht et al 26,28 performed two studies in university students and two in Tehrani adults. 23,24 Because the sample sizes were the same, we chose the study that focused on the DDS-BMI association and provided data in quartiles rather than tertiles to categorize DDS.…”

“…Studies have linked DDS to adverse health such as cardiovascular disease, 23 metabolic syndrome, 24 cancer 25 and obesity; 26,27 however, the association between DDS and obesity have not been fully elucidated. Although some studies have reported inverse associations between DDS and obesity, 21,22,28 others have failed to show this link 29,30 or found positive associations.…”

“…Although some studies have reported inverse associations between DDS and obesity, 21,22,28 others have failed to show this link 29,30 or found positive associations. 23,27,31 Although higher DDS may be linked to lower body mass index (BMI) due to higher intakes of fiber, vitamin C and calcium, which are inversely associated with obesity, 26 higher DDS may contribute to increased energy consumption and, therefore, higher body fat and BMI. 27 The majority of research on the association between DDS and obesity are cross-sectional or based on data from cohort studies.…”

Longitudinal Development of Infant Complementary Diet Diversity in 3 International Cohorts

“…Studies in adolescents and adults have shown that reduced diet diversity at those ages is associated with obesity. 6,7 The World Health Organization (WHO) developed a set of Infant and Young Child Feeding Indicators in 2008 to monitor population-level complementary feeding practices. 8,9 One of these indicators, minimum dietary diversity (MDD), focuses on the number of food groups given to infants and toddlers in the previous day and is predictive of micronutrient density of the infant's diet.…”

Dietary diversity score is a useful indicator of vitamin A status of adult women in Northern Kenya

“…However, the bulk of published studies focus on the implication of DDS on obesity, metabolic disorder, and cardiovascular disease risks in developed countries or nutrition transition contexts (e.g. Azadbakht and Esmaillzadeh, 2011;Azadbakht et al, 2006;Flores et al, 2010;Kant and Graubard, 2005;Li et al, 2011;Roberts et al, 2005). The usefulness of DDS to predict micronutrient health outcomes for adults has only recently been explicitly demonstrated using dietary and laboratory data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with U.S. adults (Kant and Graubard, 2005).…”