The dietary intake of Japanese women raising children in infancy
METHODS: Two self-administered questionnaires were distributed to women who have children whose age were 2 to 3 years old in a regional town in Japan. One of the questionnaires was the Brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire (BDHQ) and the other was about demographics. The BDHQ data can estimate caloric intake according to individual food classification.
RESULTS: 116 women were the analysis subjects. The mean age of the women were 33.5±4.9 years old. The mean BMI was 21.2±3.4. There were 26 women who were underweight (with BMI below 18.5), 74 women who were in the normal weight status (with BMI 18.5 to 24.9) and 16 women who were overweight (with BMI more than 25). There were significant differences in intake calories from seafood (p= .006) among the three groups. The mean of intake calories from seafood was 81.8 kcal for the underweight group, 101.5kcal for the normal weight group and 153.3kcal for the overweight group. There are no significant differences in energy amount among these three groups. But as a result of analysis between each individual’s estimated required calories and actual intake calories, we found that the intake of 65(56.0%) women was less than 300kcal of required calories, and the intake of 8(6.8%) women was in excess of more than 300 kcal.
CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that many Japanese women raising children in infancy don’t have an appropriate diet, and in particular, their lack of necessary intake is a problem. Effective and available health education to change eating habits of mothers is therefore, important.