Prevalence of Association of Dietary Habits with Chronic Energy Deficiency in Ethnic Adult Punjabi Population.

Abstract

Introduction: Food is one of three basic things after air and water without which, life on earth is impossible. Without proper food, body will not thrive to its optimum potential. Chronic Energy Deficiency (CED) is one such state, where there is lack of food intake over a prolonged period of time. In India around 30% of population is suffering from CED. Objectives: To find the association of dietary habits with CED in ethnic Punjabi population. Materials & Methods: The study was a cross sectional study using simple random sampling technique. Taking the prevalence of CED as 30%, sample size came out to be 336, but for ease of convenience, 400 subjects were selected equally from rural and urban areas. Results: The subjects who took calorie intake less than the recommended RDA, developed CED more 62(82.9%) than meeting RDA 13(17.1). Subjects who used to skip meals more than once a week 46 (60.5%) had higher CED rates than ones skipping once a week 8(10.5%). People who were pure vegetarians had higher rates of CED 71(93.4%) than non-vegetarians 5(6.6%). People who consumed milk or milk products more than once daily developed lesser CED 1(1.3%) than taking once daily 15(19.7) and ones taking only once a week 60(79.0%). Conclusion: According to the study, persons with adequate calorie intake, who do not skip meals, take some kind of non-vegetarian food once or twice a week and consume milk on daily basis have lesser tendency to develop CED as compared to others.