The Relationship Between White-Collar Workers’ Nutritional Habits, Nutritional Status, and Healthy Eating Index

INTRODUCTION: This study was planned to determine the dietary habits, working hours, and anthropometric characteristics of randomly selected white-collar workers from various sectors in Istanbul and Bursa provinces and to investigate their relationship with the Healthy Eating Index (HEI).
METHODS: A total of 171 employees participated in the study, with face-to-face assessments using general characteristic forms, nutritional habits, anthropometric measurements, a 24-h dietary recall, and HEI.
RESULTS: A total of 171 white-collar working individuals participated in the study, with ages ranging from 23 to 59 years, consisting of 123 females and 48 males. The overall HEI score for participants was 51.27±11.75, and for females and males, average scores were 52.39±11.63 and 48.39±11.72, respectively (p<0.05). No participants in either sex group demonstrated good dietary quality. Males had poorer dietary quality compared to females. It was found that most participants skipped meals, with breakfast being the most skipped meal. After breakfast, morning snacks and lunch were the next most frequently skipped meals. As the number of meals and the daily water intake of participants increased, there was an associated increase in their HEI scores (p<0.05). In addition, a decrease in HEI scores was noted with the delay in dinner time and an increase in participants’ daily energy intake. It was found a negative correlation between body weight, body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio with HEI scores; however, this correlation was not statistically significant. When age, sex, education, income level, marital status, smoking, alcohol use, sleep duration, food allergies, presence of diseases, work experience, current job tenure, time spent standing, and time spent sitting were included in Binary Logistic Regression Analysis, it was observed that the only independent variable affecting the HEI score was sex. Female sex was found to reduce the risk of having poor dietary quality. This section is written quite long for the abstract section. The abstract should be a maximum of 250 words. Therefore, the result section should be shortened.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Our study has shown the need to improve the diet quality of white-collar workers. The findings also suggest that late-night dinners negatively affect diet quality. In addition, it appears that male employees have a lower diet quality compared to females, and this difference in dietary approaches should not be overlooked.