Conscious eating correlates to higher dietary diversity and lower food variety scores

Background Paying deliberate attention to what, when, and how one eats with consideration to its health effects can affect dietary diversity and food variety in daily life. However, it remains unclear whether such conscious eating translates into healthier dietary diversity and food variety, and how these indicators are related to non-communicable disease (NCDs) burden. Aim The current study aimed to examine the relationship between conscious eating, dietary diversity score (DDS), food variety score (FVS), and prevalence of NCDs among academic cohorts from two cities, Hisar and Kanpur, in North India. Methods In a cross-sectional study, a total of 200 respondents were assessed for conscious eating practices using a 13-item battery of questions, 24-h dietary recall, and six-month medical history. Summary The results depicted that the academic cohort from Kanpur had a significantly higher FVS (18.06 and 14.78, respectively) and conscious eating score (12.29 and 11.52, respectively) than those from Hisar. The prevalence of non-communicable disease was 1.51 and 2.42 per person in Hisar and Kanpur, respectively. Though DDS did not differ significantly between the groups, a positive correlation ( p ≤ 0.05) was observed between DDS and conscious eating. Conversely, FVS showed a significant ( p ≤ 0.05) negative correlation with conscious eating and a significant ( p ≤ 0.05) positive correlation with NCD prevalence. While dietary diversity increased with conscious eating, food variety showed an opposite pattern and was positively associated with NCD burden. Diet consciousness appears to have arisen as a consequence of increased NCD burden, rather than being a proactive preventive measure.