Association of dietary factors and other coronary risk factors with socialclass in women in five Indian cities

The association between social classes, food intake and coronary risk facto rs was determined. Cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 6-12 urban str eets in each of five cities, each one from five different regions of India using similar methods of dietary intakes and criteria of diagnosis. We rand omly selected 3257 women aged 25-64 years inclusive, from Moradabad (n = 90 2), Trivandrum (n = 760), Calcutta (n = 410), Nagpur (n = 405) and Bombay ( n = 780). All subjects, after pooling of data, were divided into social cla ss 1 (n = 985), class 2 (n = 790), class 3 (n = 774), class 4 (n = 602) and class 5 (n = 206) based on various attributes of socioeconomic status. Soc ial class 1 was the highest and 5 was the lowest social class. Social class es 1-3 had greater intake of pro-atherogenic foods; total visible fat, milk and milk products, meat and eggs, as well as sugar and confectionery, comp ared to social classes 4 and 5. The consumption of wheat, rice, millets, fr uits, vegetables and legume/total visible fat ratio were inversely associat ed with social class. Mean body mass index (BMI), obesity, overweight, cent ral obesity and sedentary lifestyle were also significantly more common amo ng subjects from higher social classes. Spearman's rank correlation showed that bodyweight, BMI, wheat, rice, millets, total visible fat, milk and mil k products, meat, eggs, sugar and jaggery intakes were significantly correl ated with social class. Social class 5 subjects had a lower intake of all f oods and a lower BMI, suggestive of a higher rate of undernutrition among t hem. The findings indicate that the consumption of pro-atherogenic foods an d other coronary risk factors are more common in higher social classes comp ared to lower social classes.