Assessment of Food Habits and Their Association with Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Employees

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the most causes of mortality in worldwide. Objective: We evaluated the food habits and their association with cardiovascular risk factors in employees. Method: A descriptive, cross-sectional study, including employees of offices in the city of Sarvabad, the west of Iran in 2010 was conducted. Data were collected by using questionnaires including demographic factors and dietary habits. The individuals' food habits were ascertained using an 11-item food frequency questionnaire. Frequency of consumption of various food groups and beverages (i.e., meat, fish, milk, fruits, vegetables, cereals, oil, salt, fast food and etc) on daily, weekly or monthly basis was assessed. For statistics, STATA 11 was used; associations were calculated by t–test; p<0.05 was considered significant. Result: A total of 455 employees were included in the study of which 25% were female with mean age of 34 years (male 33.1 vs. female 38.1, P < 0.001). About 1.5% of employees had elevated blood pressure, 10.5% were smokers, 11.2% had family history of CVD, 5.9% were diabetes (male 3.7% vs. female 12.5%, P < 0.001) and 9.2% were obese. The mean of dietary habits of 11-item was significantly higher in the females, obese and diabetes, (P < 0.001) but the mean of dietary habits in smoker employees was lower than in non-smoker ones, P < 0.001). Conclusion: Majority of employees had high prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, diabetes, smoking and family history of CVD. Therefore, the results suggest that nutrition education for employees needs to be more focused on the improvement of dietary habits of staff.