[Dietary habits and social differences: the experience of EPIC-Italy]

Abstract

Objectives: to investigate the impact of socioeconomic status on dietary habits in Italy.

Design: large Italian multicentric prospective cohort study.

Setting and participants: more than 45,000 subjects recruited between 1993 and 1998 in five Italian centres (Turin, Varese, Florence, Naples, and Ragusa). Dietary habits, educational level, and other characteristics were collected at baseline using standardised questionnaires.

Main outcome measures: dietary habits collected for the EPIC study, grouped by food type and summarised by a Mediterranean dietary index.

Results: we observed differences in dietary habits and in lifestyle habits by tertile of educational level. Principally, we noticed a positive association between higher education and healthy dietary habits (reduction in intake of processed meat, bread and rice, sweet drinks; increase in intake of fruit and vegetables, yoghurt, fish, olive oil, and tea).

Conclusion: a relationship between educational level and dietary habits is confirmed also in Italy, even if differences due to gender and residence area are present. This study shows an important role of dietary habits in health inequalities of the population with lower socioeconomic status.