Association between the Socioeconomic Status of Households and a More Sustainable Diet.

OBJECTIVE A sustainable diet is an affordable diet with low environmental impact, high food security, and sufficient healthiness. The present study aimed to assess the correlation between the socioeconomic status of households and a sustainable diet. DESIGN The food basket and socioeconomic data of Iranian households were evaluated during 2016-2018. The households were classified based on the sustainability of their diet by determining the dietary carbon footprint, dietary water footprint, lower dietary costs of the household than the median, and a higher dietary quality index than the median. Logistic regression was used with four models to calculate the odds ratio (OR) of a more sustainable diet as the dependent variable regarding the different quartiles of socioeconomic status (SES) as the independent variable. SETTING Iran. PARTICIPANTS Iranian households (n 102,303), nationally representative, were studied. RESULTS Lower SES was associated with the higher OR of a sustainable diet (OR: 0.90; CI: 0.87-0.91). Higher quartiles of SES compared to the lower SES group indicated the higher energy intake and consumption of more dairies, meat, poultry, fish, eggs, legumes, nuts, and fruits, as well as the lower intake of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. CONCLUSION In countries such as Iran, where nutrition transition occurs rapidly, better economic and social levels in the populations with a higher SES are associated with increased energy intake and higher consumption of animal-based foods, which decreases sustainable diets compared to the groups with a lower SES.