Food Insecurity is Associated with Low Dietary Diversity in Rural Women in Mexico: Results from the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey, ENSANUT 2018

ABSTRACT

Rural women suffer greater vulnerability to food insecurity (FI) compared to their urban or male counterparts. We analyzed the association between food security (FS) status and dietary diversity (DD) in rural women through data from the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey (ENSANUT) 2018 from 2,099 rural women. DD was measured using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. FS was measured using the Latin America and Caribbean Food Security Scale (ELCSA). The prevalence of any level of FI was 70.1%. Mean DD score was 3.8. Mild FI was associated with low DD (OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.06, 2.10). Results highlight the need for government strategies targeted to this population sector to improve their diet quality.

KEYWORDS:

• Dietary diversity
• Food insecurity
• food groups
• rural women
• Mexico

Abbreviations

DD	=	Dietary diversity
FI	=	Food insecurity
FFQ	=	Validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire
ENSANUT	=	National Health and Nutrition Survey
ELCSA	=	Latin American and Caribbean Food Insecurity Scale (in Spanish, ELCSA).
SES	=	Socio-economic status

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authorship

AA, AG, and FT were responsible for the study conceptualization and design. AA was responsible for the data analysis. All authors contributed to the interpretation of results. The manuscript was drafted by AA in methodology, results and discussion sections and AG and FT wrote the introduction and contribute to discussion with critical revision of the remaining authors. CD, VM, and TS gave input to all sections. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/03670244.2023.2259805

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors.