Background/Aims: Dietary patterns consider the whole diet rather than individual foods and nutrients. This study aimed to investigate dietary patterns and associations with socio-demographic factors in adult New Zealanders.
Methods: Dietary patterns were identified using factor analysis in adults 15 years and over (n=4657) using 24-hour diet recall data from the 2008/09 New Zealand (NZ) Adult Nutrition Survey. Multivariate analysis was used to investigate associations between dietary patterns and socio-demographic factors (age, gender, ethnicity, food insecurity, deprivation, education, smoking and supplement use).
Results: Two dietary patterns were identified explaining 12.0% of the variance in food intake. Pattern 1 was a ‘healthy’ dietary pattern characterised by breakfast cereal, low fat milk, yoghurt, bananas, apples, other fruit and tea, and low intakes of pies and pastries, potato chips, white bread, takeaway foods, soft drinks, beer and wine. Pattern 2 was a ‘traditional’ dietary pattern characterised by beef, starchy vegetables, carrots, tomatoes, savoury sauces, regular milk, cream, sugar, tea and coffee, and low in takeaway foods. The ‘healthy’ dietary pattern was positively associated with age, female gender, ethnicity (NZ European or other), never smoking, having a secondary school qualification and taking dietary supplements and was inversely associated with food insecurity and deprivation. The ‘traditional’ dietary pattern was positively associated with age, male gender, smoking (current or ever), food insecurity and inversely associated with having a secondary school qualification.
Conclusions: Dietary patterns were associated with socio-demographic factors. Further research is needed to investigate associations between dietary patterns and nutrition-related risk factors.
Funding source(s): n/a