Nutritional health in premenopausal women: A cross-sectional study from Turkey

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutritional habits of premenopausal women using the Food Consumption Frequency Questionnaire (FCFQ) and to evaluate the relationship between anthropometric measurements, lipid parameters, and the presence of anemia with the findings obtained. Methods: This study was carried out in the internal medicine outpatient clinics of the Health Sciences University Bursa Yuksek Ihtisas Training Research Hospital (located in Yildirim districts) and Gursu State Hospital (located in Gursu districts) of Bursa province between 1 June-31 August 2019. We used clustered sampling in patient selection. One hundred seventy-one premenopausal participants aged between 18 and 55 who were known to be healthy and who came for routine control to the internal medicine outpatient clinics were included in the study. The FCFQ was used to determine how often the participants consumed different food groups in the last 1 month. Results: Overweight participants were 29.20% and 17% were obese. 43.90% of the women had anemia and 65.50% of the women had iron deficiency. The milk-dairy products nutrition score of the group with triglycerides (TG) < 150 mg/dL was higher than the group with TG >= 150 mg/dL (P = 0.029). The meat-egg-legumes nutrition score (2.11 +/- 0.57) of the group with high density lipoprotein (HDL) >= 50 mg/dL was higher than the group with HDL < 50 mg/dL (1.91 +/- 0.58) (P = 0.04). Conclusions: Anemia and obesity are high in premenopausal women. Community-based screening programs are needed to evaluate premenopausal women for anemia and obesity. Scales to assess the nutritional habits of the population are also needed in screening programs.