Three major dietary patterns are all independently related to the risk of obesity among 3760 Japanese women aged 18-20 years

• Published in: International Journal of Obesity 2008-03, Vol.32 (3), p.541-549
• Main Authors: Okubo, H, Sasaki, S, Murakami, K, Kim, M.K, Takahashi, Y, Hosoi, Y, Itabashi, M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Algae; Biological and medical sciences; Body height; Body Mass Index; Cluster analysis; Confounding (Statistics); Cross-Sectional Studies; Diet; diet history; Diet Records; Dietary supplements; eating habits; Eggs; Epidemiology; Factor analysis; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Feeding Behavior; Female; Females; Food; Food and nutrition; Food groups; Fruits; General aspects; Health aspects; health foods; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Humans; Internal Medicine; Japan - epidemiology; Japanese; Japanese people; Management; Medical sciences; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Metabolic Diseases; Nutrition research; Obesity; Obesity - epidemiology; Obesity - etiology; Odds Ratio; Oils & fats; original-article; Potatoes; Public Health; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Questionnaires; Risk factors; Shellfish; Soy products; Students; Surveys and Questionnaires; traditional foods; Vegetables; Western diet; Women; Womens health; young adults
• ISSN: 0307-0565; 1476-5497
• DOI: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0803737

Objective: To examine associations between dietary patterns and obesity. Design: Cross-sectional study. Subjects: A total of 3760 Japanese female dietetic course students aged 18–20 years from 53 institutions in Japan. Measurements: Diet was assessed over a 1-month period with a validated self-administered diet history questionnaire with 148 food items, from which 30 food groups were created and entered into a factor analysis. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated from self-reported body height and weight. Results: Mean BMI (±s.d.) was 20.9±2.8 kg m −2 . Four dietary patterns were identified. After adjustment for several confounding factors and total energy intake, the ‘Healthy’ pattern, characterized by high intakes of vegetables, mushrooms, seaweeds, potatoes, fish and shellfish, soy products, processed fish, fruit and salted vegetables, was significantly associated with a lower risk of BMI⩾25 (odds ratio of the highest quintile vs lowest, 0.57; 95% confidence interval: 0.37–0.87; P for trend