2022 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 149-157
Objective: The aim of this study was to comprehensively identify the factors associated with a healthy dietary habit.
Methods: The subjects were 720 respondents (46% men) of the 2016 Hyogo Diet Survey, aged 20 to 49 years. A healthy dietary habit was defined as having a well-balanced meal at least twice daily, eating breakfast regularly, and eating five or more vegetable dishes daily. Factors associated with a healthy diet were defined as regular dietary attitudes for lifestyle disease prevention (controlling energy intake, restricting salt intake, controlling fat intake, controlling sugar intake, eating large amounts of vegetables, and eating fruit), health behavior (healthy weight maintenance, use of nutrition facts labels), and the habit of eating out infrequently. These variables were used to develop a hypothetical model for covariance structure analysis.
Results: The hypothetical model had acceptable goodness of fit (χ2 = 153.015, df = 86, GFI = 0.967, AGFI = 0.940, CFI = 0.974, RMSEA = 0.033, AIC = 293.015). Dietary attitudes for lifestyle disease prevention was associated not directly, but indirectly via health behavior, with a healthy dietary habit, with standardized total effects of 0.40 in men and 0.41 in women. In men, a significant negative path from relatively high frequency of eating out to a healthy dietary habit was observed, with a standardized estimate of –0.17 (p = 0.021).
Conclusion: Healthy dietary habits may be associated with dietary attitudes for lifestyle disease prevention via health behavior and may be negatively affected by men's frequency of eating out.
