Dietary diversity score is related to obesity and abdominal obesity among Tehranian young boy students

Background: Overweight and obesity is a worrying issue in the present age and the cause of many chronic non-communicable diseases. Nutritional and non-nutritional factors involved in the development of this health crisis. One of the most important nutritional factors is dietary diversity. Objective:  The present study was conducted to report the relationship among dietary diversity score (DDS), obesity and abdominal adiposity among Tehranian young students. Methods: This study was cross-sectional in which, 246 young men, according to the inclusion criteria, were selected. The study was conducted in April 2016. Demographic data were collected by questionnaire and anthropometric measurements were conducted according to international standards. For each participant recorded 24-hour recall food and calculated the DDS. Finally, nine food groups were measured for each person. The analysis was adjusted for confounding factors. Findings: The means of BMI and waist circumference were 23.9±3.8 and 88.7±10.6. The probability of obesity decreased with quartiles of DDS (1.00, 0.53, 0.08 and 0.19; P=0.01). Conclusion: The inverse relationship between the DDS and odds ratio of obesity and abdominal obesity was observed in young men. So that by increasing dietary diversity score, the odds ratio of obesity was lower. Further prospective investigations are needed to confirm this finding.