Food Consumption and Physical Status of Women in a Farming and Fishing District

Abstract

The results of a nutrition survey executed in 1979 in Hirao-cho, Yamaguchi Prefecture on 103 women between the ages of 20 and 65 were analyzed in order to clarify the actual conditions of food consumption and relationships between the food consumption sand physical status. It was found that: (1) consumption of milk and milk products and calcium intake were higher than those observed for average Japanese population by 1979 National Nutrition Survey; (2) there were statistically significant correlations between broca index, blood pressure, total serum cholesterol or blood gravity level and consumption of some food groups or intake of some nutrients in simple regression, in some age groups; (3) there was statistically significant positive correlation between broca index or systolic blood pressure and the food consumption pattern in which much Japanese traditional food -stuffs are taken, and negative correlation between blood gravity or serum cholesterol level and said food consumption pattern in some age groups; and (4) in multiple regression analysis wherein the index of the physical status was used as the criterion variable and consumption of Japanese traditional food groups or modern food groups was used as the explanatory variable, quantity of consumption of modern food groups significantly associated with serum cholesterol level, and frequency of consumption of modern food groups significantly associated with blood pressure and serum cholesterol level .