The comparison of food patterns and food expenditures in different socioeconomic statuses of Iranian households

Background: Food and nutrition have an undeniably important role in the occurrence of social inequalities in the health of people in society. The household income level, food prices, and the amount of money spent on food are effective factors in food choices and people's health. Our objective was to determine and compare households’ food patterns based on food prices and their income in different socioeconomic statuses (SES). Method: 125 households were randomly selected from five of the Kermanshah city districts based on the SES, including very poor, poor, middle, rich, and very rich. Data were collected using a personal information questionnaire, SES questionnaire, semi-quantitative weekly food purchase registration questionnaire, outdoor food purchase registration questionnaire, and a medium and long-term food purchase reminder questionnaire. The relationship between SES and households’ income with the amount spent for each food group was performed by Spearman's nonparametric correlation technique. Results: : The average total cost of households for food per day was 2.51±0.18 $. The highest and lowest daily food expenditures were related to the protein group (39.9%) and the dairy group (3.8%), respectively. Also, dairy and starch groups were the most expensive and cheapest food groups with 5.5 and 0.45 cents per unit. Households in the first SES spent 75.2% of their total income on food and there was a direct and significant correlation between SES, education, and income level with energy, macronutrients, and fiber (p<0.001). Conclusion: Our findings showed that SES can influence the amount and type of nutrients purchased by households. The households usually met their nutritional requirements by overeating, resulting in food insecurity and cellular starvation. Increasing nutritional knowledge and making the right decisions by food policymakers may reduce food insecurity at the community level.