Food insecurity was negatively associated with adherence to the "fruits, vegetables, and foods rich in animal protein" dietary pattern among university students' households: the 2018 Mexican National Household Survey

Abstract

Background: University students are often affected by food insecurity (FI) and this situation has been associated with low consumption of fruit/vegetables and high intake of added sugars and sweet drinks. However, there needs to be more evidence on the association between FI and dietary patterns (DPs), assessing the overall diet and allowing analysis of commonly consumed food combinations. We aimed to analyze the association between FI and DPs in university students' households.

Methods: We used data from 7659 university student households from the 2018 Mexican National Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH, for its acronym in Spanish). We obtained FI levels (mild, moderate, and severe) using the validated Mexican Food Security Scale (EMSA, Spanish acronym). Two DPs were identified by principal component analysis based on the weekly frequency of consumption of 12 food groups. Multivariate logistic regression adjusted by university student and household's characteristics was applied.

Results: Compared to food security, households with mild-FI (OR:0.34; 95%CI:0.30, 0.40), moderate-FI (OR:0.20; 95%CI:0.16, 0.24) or severe-FI (OR:0.14; 95%CI:0.11, 0.19) were less likely to adhere to the dietary pattern "Fruits, vegetables and foods rich in animal protein" (fruits, vegetables, meat, fish or seafood, dairy products, and starchy vegetables). In addition, people with severe-FI (OR:0.51; 95% CI:0.34, 0.76) were also less likely to adhere to the dietary pattern "Traditional-Westernized" (pulses, oils or fats, sugar, sweets, industrialized drinks, foods made from corn/maize, wheat, rice, oats or bran, coffee, tea and eggs).

Conclusions: In these households FI impairs the ability to consume a healthy dietary pattern (fruits/vegetables and foods rich in animal protein). In addition, the intake of foods typical of the Mexican food culture reflecting the local Western dietary pattern is compromised in households with severe-FI.

Keywords: College student; Dietary pattern; Food insecurity; Food security; University student.

Fig. 1

Spider plot showing the factorial loadings for each food groups for the two factors/dietary patterns. The foods included in the DP “Fruits, vegetables, and food rich in animal protein” are shown on the solid line. The foods included in the DP “Traditional-Westernized” are shown on the thick dotted line. DPs only included food groups with a factor loading ≥ 0.3. The thin dotted line indicates the factorial loading 0.3

Fig. 2

Scatter plot of adherence to dietary patterns by households’ food security and by households cluster. DP: Dietary Pattern. In the scatter plot black diamonds represent cluster 1 (n = 2247) including university students’ households with moderate adherence to the DP “Fruits, vegetables and foods rich in animal protein” (mean percentage of adherence 66.5 ± 10.2) and high adherence to DP “Traditional-Westernized” (mean percentage of adherence 91.3 ± 6.5); light grey squares represent cluster 2 (n = 3255) including university students’ households lacking adherence to the DP “Fruits, vegetables, and foods rich in animal protein” (mean percentage of adherence 49.2 ± 14) and moderate adherence to the DP “Traditional-Westernized” (mean percentage of adherence 68.1 ± 12.5); dark grey triangles represent cluster 3 (n = 2157) including university students’ households with non-adherence to the DP “Fruits, vegetables and foods rich in animal protein” (mean adherence 32.6 ± 11.7), and high adherence to the DP “Traditional-Westernized” (mean percentage adherence 88.5 ± 10.5). In this scatter plot the points also represent university students’ households with and without some degree of food insecurity. The household’s food insecurity category includes mild, moderate, and severe food insecurity