Dietary adequacy among tobacco user households in Bangladesh

Authors

• MK Virk-Baker
• M Parascandola

Abstract

Smokers have less adequate diet as compared to non-smokers. Less is known about the influence of tobacco on dietary intakes in low-income countries where malnutrition is a major public health challenge. Additionally, the effects of smokeless tobacco on dietary intake are unknown. The purpose of this study was to evaluate influence of tobacco use on dietary intakes in a developing country. We used the nationally representative Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES-2010) from Bangladesh. Overall, 8693 (71.02%) households reported positive expenditure on tobacco (smoking and/or smokeless), and were considered any-tobacco users. Our results indicate that after controlling for household expenditure, household size, place of residence, and education, any-tobacco user households consumed significantly lower amounts of vegetables per household (β = -18.35 g/day; p ˂ 0.0001), milk and dairy (β = -12.83 g/day; p ˂ 0.0001), fish (β = -11.19 g/day; p ˂ 0.0001), meat (β = -7.60 g/day; p ˂ 0.0001), legumes (β = -3.31g/day; p ˂ 0.0001), eggs (β = -1.60 g/day; p ˂ 0.0001) as compared to tobacco non-user households. The project provides evidence to support policy recommendations for addressing poor dietary intakes and malnutrition burden among tobacco user households in a developing country like Bangladesh. Addressing tobacco use in relation to malnutrition would make tobacco control a higher priority for effective tobacco related chronic disease prevention, as well as achieving the Millennium Development Goal 1, and post-2015 development agenda of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

Scientific Focus Area: Epidemiology

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