A Cross-Sectional Study on Dietary Patterns Derived From Principal Component Analysis and Their Association with Body Mass Index Among Extreme BMI Females in Iraq

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to characterize dietary patterns using principle component analysis (PCA) and examine their association with extreme Body Mass Index categories and age groups among adult women. A sample of 100 females from 4 age groups, i.e., late adolescence, early reproductive age, peak reproductive age and perimenopausal age was subjected to cross-sectional design. Researchers gathered information on the sociodemographic, reproductive and health-related characteristics and food intake was assessed using a 105-item FFQ, a food-frequency questionnaire. PCA with varimax rotation was applied to obtain dietary patterns. Five dietary patterns were identified, accounting for 35.77% of variance. The dietary pattern scores were compared according to BMI and age categories by means of inferential statistics and Spearman correlation analysis. The two dietary patterns of sweet snack/sugar and western starchy/fast food were statistically significantly associated with BMI group as p = 0.004 for both. Nonetheless, both patterns had weak negative correlation with BMI. We didn’t find any relationships between dietary patterns and age groups or BMI × age interactions. As per the findings, dietary behaviour of this population is complex and multidimensional. It also has a weak association with BMI. It indicates chances of behavioural adaptation and under reporting. Also, it suffers from cross-sectional limitations.