Journal
PUBLIC HEALTH NUTRITION
Volume 14, Issue 9, Pages 1680-1692Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980010003642
Keywords
Diet cost; Food prices; Diet quality; Healthy eating index; Socio-economic position
Funding
- Swedish Nutrition Society
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Objective: To examine diet costs in relation to dietary quality and socio-economic position, and to investigate underlying reasons for differences in diet costs. Design: Dietary intake was assessed by a 4 d food diary and evaluated using the 2005 Healthy Eating Index (HEI). National consumer food prices collected by Statistics Sweden and from two online stores/supermarkets were used to estimate diet costs. Setting: Sweden. Subjects: A nationally representative sample of 2160 children aged 4, 8 or 11 years. Results: Higher scores on the HEI resulted in higher diet costs and, conversely, higher diet costs were linked to increased total HEI scores. Children who consumed the most healthy and/or expensive diets ate a more energy-dilute and varied diet compared with those who ate the least healthy and/or least expensive diets. They also consumed more fish, ready meals and fruit. Regression analysis also linked increased food costs to these food groups. There was a positive, but weak, relationship between HEI score and diet cost, parental education and parental occupation respectively. Conclusions: Healthy eating is associated with higher diet cost in Swedish children, in part because of price differences between healthy and less-healthy foods. The cheapest and most unhealthy diets were found among those children whose parents were the least educated and had manual, low-skill occupations. Our results pose several challenges for public health policy makers, as well as for nutrition professionals, when forming dietary strategies and providing advice for macro-and microlevels in society.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available