Disease Occurrence Clearly Impacts Eating Behavior: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Jordanians

Background: Many factors affect eating behaviors, including disease occurrence.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the eating behaviors and their changes due to disease incidence among Jordanians.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 1170 males and 1512 females (>8 years) between March and May 2022. Participants were categorized into two groups: diseased (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and their comorbidities, which refer to the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient) and disease-free. Eating behaviors were evaluated, including meal timing and frequency, late-night eating, and fast food consumption.

RESULTS: Either healthy or diseased participants, regardless of gender, tend to consume two to three meals daily, have one to three snacks, have lunch between 1:00–and 6:00 p.m. with no late food intake, and have a frequency of fast food consumption (males: 68.7% for healthy and 60.1% for diseased, p<0.001; females: 67.0% for healthy and 43.6% for diseased, p<0.001), indicating that diseases occurrences reduce the population's fast-food eating habits. Also, the most skipped meal was breakfast, except for females, where healthy ones tend to skip breakfast (20.1% vs. 16.4% for diseased), and diseased ones tend to skip dinner (18.5% vs. 13% for healthy). Based on MyPlate, cereals consumed most by healthy and diseased participants were cereals (65.1% for healthy and 60.7% for diseased). Diseased participants reported significantly higher consumption of vegetables group (10.2%) compared to healthy participants (4.7%, p<0.001). The most missed or unconsumed food group was dairy products (46.7% for healthy and 40.6% for diseased). The prevalence of morning and night eating was 43.4% and 26.1% of the diseased participants, in contrast to healthy participants (37.7% and 31.0%, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS: The Jordanian population's eating behaviors need improvement toward more healthy ones. Disease occurrences may be one of the factors that change and enhance healthy eating behaviors toward healthier ones.