engleski

Impact of westernisation on traditional diet pattern in Croatia and Africa

Introduction: In literature, traditional diets (TD) are described as healthy diet model and they are based on local and seasonal food as well as people’s culture. However, today TD patterns are lost because of westernisation process. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge about TD, difference in TD patterns and incidence of non- communicable diseases influenced by dietary habits in people from Mediterranean diet (MD) and African diet (AD) area. Subjects and methods: The study was conducted on 293 subjects, of whom 159 were from MP area (7% males, 93% females) with average age of 22.7 ± 3.9 years and 134 from AP area (62% males, 38% females) with average age of 31.7 ± 6.2 years. Data was collected through an on- line questionnaire from June 2016 until June 2017. Questionnaire contained 72 questions about sociodemographic status, knowledge about TD, dietary habits and non-communicable diseases divided into 6 parts. Statistical analysis was performed using the Microsoft Office Excel 2010 and IBM SPSS Statistics v. 22.0. Results: Participants from both TD area think that their TD is ‘healthy’ and that westernisation process has decreased dietary habits quality and caused loss of knowledge about TD. Significantly more (p<0.01) participants from MD area think that minority of people still have TD than the participants from AD area. Deviation from TD patterns is observed in more frequent meat consumption, reduced daily vegetable and fruit intake, and increased attendance to fast food restaurants. This deviation is more present in the participants from AD area (p=0.006 ; p<0.01 ; p<0.01 ; p<0.01, respectively) than from MD area. Participants from both TD area rarely add salt in their meals, and they prepare food mainly with vegetable oils. Alcoholic drinks consumption is more frequent in participants from AD area (p<0.01) while participants from MD area are more prone (p<0.01) to the consumption of sweets. Participants from AD area have significantly greater body weight (p<0.01), body height (p<0.01) and body mass index (p<0.01) than participants from MD area. Nonsignificant incidence of non-communicable diseases was observed in the participants, but the participants for MD area have higher incidence of angina pectoris (p=0.003). Conclusion: This is the first study which compare the TD from the Mediterranean and African area. Although participants are familiar with the benefits of TD, the impact of westernisation process is notice on their dietary habits. In this study no major incidence of non-communicable diseases was observed because the participants are mostly younger. However, further follow-up of participants is needed to notice the long-term impact of westernisation on higher incidence of non-communicable diseases.

Mediterranean diet ; African diet ; westernisation ; dietary habits

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