Abstract Background/objectives Improving the diets of women of reproductive age living in Mumbai slums may benefit their own health and that of their children. Our objective was to identify diet patterns in this population group. Subjects/methods Participants were married women ( n = 6513) aged <40 years enroled in a randomised controlled trial of a food-based intervention. We collected dietary data at the time of enrolment using a 212-item food frequency questionnaire. We used principal component analysis and cluster analysis to identify dietary patterns and explored socio-demographic correlates of the patterns using multivariate linear regression models. Results We identified 2 interpretable patterns. The first, named the ‘Snack, Fruit and Sweet’ pattern was characterised by vegetable curry, fried snacks, salad, fruit, sweets and sweetened beverages and explained 9.3% of the variance. Scores on this pattern were independently associated with the women not working versus being employed (0.13, CI: 0.06, 0.19, p < 0.001) and with standard of living index score (0.03, CI: 0.02, 0.04, p < 0.001). The second pattern was named ‘Non-vegetarian’ and was characterised by meat and biriyani and rice and noodle dishes, with low intakes of lentils, legumes, nuts and seeds. This pattern was associated with being Muslim and was negatively associated with age (-0.02, CI: -0.03, -0.02, p < 0.001) and standard of living index (-0.01, CI: -0.01, 0.00, p < 0.001). It explained 6.7% of the variance. Conclusions We identified two interpretable patterns that can be used to better understand dietary habits in Mumbai slums. This knowledge can be used to target interventions aimed at improving diet quality in these communities.
Kehoe et al. (Wed,) studied this question.