Dietary Staus Index: Association with Food Groups and Body Mass Index in Rural East Tennessee Women Living in Public Housing

Dietary Status Index: Association with Food Groups and Body Mass

Index in Rural East Tennessee Women Living in Public Housing Objective: To determine if any differences existed in the number of servings per week consumed from designated food groups between women with low, medium or high Dietary Status Index (DSI) scores. Also, to determine if an association exists between Dietary Status Index (DSI) and Body Mass Index (BMI). DSI, a measure of both dietary adequacy and moderation, is the arithmetic mean of the Dietary Adequacy Score (DAS) and the Dietary Moderation Score (DMS).

Subjects: 121 non-pregnant females, 18 years or older living in rural public housing were self-selected from a multi-stage larger study, Housing Health Education Rural Outreach (HHERO).

Design: Health Habits and History Questionnaire (HHHQ) Brief 87 version was used to derive estimated nutrient intakes, which were used to calculate DSI. The DSI score was rank ordered and expressed as tertiles (HIGH, MID, and LOW). Foods from the HHHQ foods list were compressed into 27 food groups and respective servings per week calculated. The women were also categorized as normal/ underweight or overweight using a cut off point for BMI of ≥ 27.3 kg/m² to represent the overweight group.

Statistical Analysis: Kruskall-Wallis test performed to determine Statistical differences between weekly servings per food group and a LOW, MID, or HIGH DSI (p ≤ 0.001). The Wilcoxin rank-sum test was performed to establish if a difference existed in DSI scores between the overweight and normal/underweight groups.

Results: The only food group whose consumption was found to be statistically different between DSI tertiles was fruits and juices (p=0.0009). Although trends in consumption between DSI tertiles were noted for all food groups, large standard deviations in servings per week limited statistical test differences. Prevalence of obesity in this population sub-group was 51%. Mean BMI (28.85 +/- 7.45 kg/m²) fell within the obese category. Caloric estimates were slightly higher in the normal weight group than in the overweight group. Means for DSI, DAS, and DMS were 48.39 (+/- 17.50), 46.56 (+/- 28.44) and 50.21 (+/- 31.37), respectively. When DSI (p=0.91), DAS (p=0.85), DMS (p=0.90) were tested for between BMI category differences, no statistical differences were found.

Conclusions: The diets of East Tennessee women living in rural public housing could be improved by increasing consumption of fruits and juice. Also, in this study of East Tennessee women no differences were found between DSI, DAS, and DMS scores between those women who were overweight versus those who were normal/underweight.