Correlation between a liking for fat-rich foods and body fatness in adult Japanese: a gender difference

The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that Japanese adult s who like fat-rich foods have more body fatness and higher serum lipid lev els than those who do not. The subjects were 540 male and 492 female worker s under 41 years of age. A self-administered questionnaire determined four levels of liking for fat-rich foods. Anthropometric measurements were emplo yed yielding body mass index (BMI), waist to hip circumference ratio (WHR), and skinfold thickness. Anthropometric values were compared among the leve ls of liking for fat-rich foods using analysis of covariance. For males, a liking for fat-rich foods was associated with BMI, WHR, whole-body skinfold thickness, and abdominal skinfold thickness (p < 0(.)0001). In particular, those who like fat-rich foods "quite a bit" or "very much" showed signific antly higher values than those who answered "no" or ''a little". Multiple r egression analysis showed that a liking for fat-rich foods explains 7-9% of the variation in the anthropometric indices, even when other lifestyles we re taken into account. For females, such findings were not evident. There i s a gender difference in the association between a liking for fat-rich food s and body fatness. The difference may be due to a female-specific attitude toward high-calorie foods. (C) 2001 Academic Press.