Healthy eating index and different fruit dietary habits in Slovak adult female

Abstract

The healthy index is a tool for evaluation of nutrition recommendation aimed at prevention of chronic diseases. A lot of studies have been devoted to HEI of different aged groups of people but dates about Slovak population have been still missed. The goal of the study was to evaluate the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) in nutrition of adult female, determine their components in relation of parameters of anthropometry and body composition. Secondly, the research work was also aimed at the comparison of partial score HEI among groups of female with different fruit intake. Daily nutrition was evaluated by 24 hours dietary recalls. In set of female (average age 31.1 ±9.1 years) the average HEI index reached up 53.0 ±8.8 points in accord with medium degree of diet, it means dietary improvement has been highly recommended. In respect of all assayed components of index the best results achieved the variety of diet (8.8 ±1.3 points) and the worst the natrium intake (0.7 ±2.0 points). The average score for the individual components pointed to neccesary of increase in the grain intake and vegetable, on the other hand the intake of cholesterol, saturated fats and especially natrium should be decreased. The differences between groups with various intake of fruit (with recommended intake and insufficient intake) in the rest 9 components have not been proved as significant. The occurrence of risk values of body index, body fats determined by bioelectric impedance and android risk based on circumference of hips can not be considered between groups as significant. Average HEI has been in significance correlation with age (r = 0.240; p <0.05), circumference of hips (r = 0.2312; p <0.05) and body weight r = 0.1748; p <0.05). Future studies have been needed to evaluate diet according to the HEI in different groups of population in Slovakia.