Dietary attitudes and behaviours of women in China after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in three seismically different zones.

Background: The sudden occurrence of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake not only devastated people's health, but also may have impacted on the psychological and dietary attitudes and behaviors of the survivors. Although the influence of natural disaster on people's health has been extensively investigated, there is a lack of information about the effects on people's dietary attitudes and behaviors. Our aim was to evaluate the influence of the Wenchuan earthquake on the dietary attitudes and behaviors of adult women from different zones of China in July 2008. Methods: 736 women, aged 18-55 years old, were randomly selected and interviewed after the earthquake. Women were selected from three zones: the earthquake zone (n=206), the shaking zone (n=326), and the non-seismic zone (n=204). Results: Although nutrition knowledge mean scores for women in the three zones were relatively low, there the women in the earthquake zone became more vigilant about the nutritional value and acceptability of food than did those in the other two zones. Nevertheless, women in the earthquake zone also developed some arguably untoward, if understandable, behaviors after the disaster. They increased their consumption and tendency to stock instant food and snack items. That said, these findings were modulated by other factors such as age, residential area, BMI (Body Mass Index), and nutrition knowledge itself, as were post-earthquake eating behaviorse, as judged by the ordinal logistic regression analyses performed. Conclusions: The major Wenchuan earthquake was associated with differentials in dietary attitudes and behaviors among women by seismic zone.