International Journal of Collaborative Research on Internal Medicine & Public Health

Groceries shopping practices and diet quality among Malaysian

Objective: Poor nutritional status had been associated with the diet quality and grocery shopping practices. Besides, the socioeconomic status influenced their behaviors toward grocery shopping practices. The aims of this study are i) to determine the association between diet quality and grocery shopping practices among supermarket adult consumers ii) to determine the risk factors that affect the grocery shopping practices among supermarket adult consumers.

Design: A set of questionnaires regarded on demographic data, and groceries shopping practices were administered.

Setting: This is a cross sectional study, conducted in Klang Valley, Malaysia.

Subjects: A total of 118 volunteered consumers between aged 20 to 64 years old were studied.

Results: This study showed that more than half of consumers categorized as regular shoppers (56.8%), while the remaining as recommended shoppers (43.2%). There was a poor positive (r = 0.233) and significant (p<0.05) correlation between diet quality and grocery shopping practices. Consumers that practiced recommended grocery shopping had better fruit (mean = 1.3, SD = 0.96, with p = 0.004) and vegetable (mean = 1.4, SD = 0.6, with p = 0.025) serving per day. Most of the consumers with poor diet quality come with secondary education (51.4%) (Crude OR [cOR]): 0.43; 95% CI: 0.19, 0.99), and low household income (47.7%) (cOR: 0.34; 95% CI: 0.15, 0.75).

Conclusions: Sociodemographic and diet quality may influence the groceries shopping practice. The findings of this study are useful to determine the potential groups for nutrition intervention programs in order to combat the health inequity among adults.

Author(s):

Nur Islami Mohd Fahmi Teng, Maziana binti Mat Zin, Nurhazimah binti Zakaria

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