Taipei Medical University.
Adolescents with Higher Althernate Healthy
Eating Index For Taiwan (AHEI-T) Scores
Do
Not Have Less Self-Reported Depression Risk
De-Zhi Weng, Yu-Pin Hsu, Guan-En Chen, Pei-Yu Wu, Shwu-Huey Sherry Yang
School of Nutrition and Health Sciences, Taipei Medical University
I
ntroduction
O
bejective
M
ethods
R
esults and Discussion
C
onclusion
AHEI-T
Total score
P:S
Fruits Vegetable Whole
grain
White:Red Soy
Depression -0.0303
0.0816
-0.1306
-0.0382
0.1037
0.1198 -0.2460
(p-value)
(0.84)
(0.59)
(0.38)
(0.80)
(0.49)
(0.42)
(0.10)
Depression is one of the major public
health issues among adolescents in taiwan. Poor dietary quality contributes to develop depression. Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) is a simple tool to assess the diet quality, and according to America dietary guideline. The more cereal fiber,
vegetable, fruits and soybean, and the less SFA and red meat you eat, and the higher score.
Explores suggest to modified the AHEI by the dietary guideline in own country of users. We modifies the AHEI according to the latest dietary guideline in Taiwan and names it as Alternate Healthy Eating Index for Taiwan (AHEI-T). We have
documented that the AHEI-T score could represent the dietary quality of adults in north Taiwan.
In this study, we evaluate the relationship between AHEI-T and depression among adolescents.
Six hundred and twenty-eight junior high school students in north Taiwan were
recruited. The information of self-reported depression questionnaire and 3-days dietary records (2 weekdays and 1 weekend) was collected. Forty-eight subjects finished the 3-days dietary records (2 weekdays and 1 weekend). The questionnaire was from
John Tong Foundation, higher score means lower mode.
The score of AHEI-T was calculated by
self-reported dietary record. The range of
score was from 2.5 to 97.5.Data were
presented as mean ± SE. Stastics method
when p <0.05 was considered as
statistically significant.
Fifty subjects completed the study, and
twenty-four subjects were boys. The dietary intake showed in table 1.
There was no statistically difference between the AHEI-T total score and each components and self-reported depression condition (table 2). Controversially, Pagoto et al (2009) find that Latinos at risk for diabetes have a high
rate of depression associated with lower AHEI scores. The limitation of association between depression and diet quality in our study might be attributed to the lack of diagnosis by the physician. We only used the self-reported
questionnaire to determine the depression and subjects may choose to hind the bad mood.
Besides, depression is multi-factors, genetic and menopause cycles also contribute to the depression, and we did not exclude these
confounding factors.
There is no significant relationship exist between the self-reported depression and AHEI-T score in adolescents from north Taiwan.
Table 2. Spearman rank correlation between self-reported depression and AHEI-T components of all subjects 1, 2
1AHEI-T=the Alternate Healthy Eating Index for Taiwan, P:S=the ratio of polyunsatisfied fatty acid and satisfied
fatty acid, Whole grain=the fiber of whole grain, White:Red=the ratio of white meat and red meat
2Statistical analyzed by Spearman rank correlation, and there was no significantly different.
Total Male Female
n 48 22 26 Energy (kcal) 2097.6 ± 117.8 2449.5 ± 210.8* 1799.8 ± 94.0 CHO (E %3) 53.0 ± 1.0 52.3 ± 1.7 53.5 ± 1.0 Fat (E%) 33.8 ± 0.8 34.1 ± 1.5 33.5 ± 0.9 Protein (E%) 13.4 ± 0.3 13.8 ± 0.4 13 ± 0.5
Table 1. Dietary data of subjects1, 2
1All values are mean ± SE. 2CHO=carbohydrate
3E%= Percentage of energy.
