The relationship between diet quality and the severity of household food insecurity in Canada

Objective: To examine the relationship between the dietary quality of Canadian children and adults and household food insecurity status.

Design: Dietary intake was assessed with one 24-h recall. Households were classified as food secure or marginally, moderately or severely food insecure based on their responses to the Household Food Security Survey Module. We applied multivariable analyses of variance to determine whether % energy from ultra-processed foods, fruit and vegetable intake, Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores, macronutrient composition and micronutrient intakes per 1000 kcal differed by food insecurity status after accounting for income, education and region. Analyses were run separately for children 1-8 years and 9-18 years and men and women 19-64 years of age.

Setting: Ten provinces in Canada.

Participants: Respondents to the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey-Nutrition, aged 1-64 years, with complete food insecurity data and non-zero energy intakes, N 15 909.

Results: Among adults and children, % energy from ultra-processed foods was strongly related to severity of food insecurity, but no significant trend was observed for fruit and vegetable intake or HEI score. Carbohydrate, total sugar, fat and saturated fat intake/1000 kcal did not differ by food insecurity status, but there was a significant negative trend in protein/1000 kcal among older children, a positive trend in Na/1000 kcal among younger children and inverse associations between food insecurity severity and several micronutrients/1000 kcal among adults and older children.

Conclusions: With more severe household food insecurity, ultra-processed food consumption was higher, and diet quality was generally lower among both adults and children.