| The nutrition transition refers to the decline in the consumption of more traditional diets that include grains, fibers, vegetables, and fruits and the increase in the consumption of "westernized diets" that include fat, sugar, animal proteins and sodium. The purpose of this study was to assess the nutrition transition stage of Jordanian women, and identify the impact of body mass index, urbanization, and western advertising and media on the stage of the nutrition transition. A pretest sample was used to validate all instruments used. The final test sample consisted of a random and representative selection of 800 rural and urban Jordanian women. A variety of culturally measured instruments were used to measure different parts of the nutrition transition: (1) Scales measuring eating styles included: Motivation for Eating Scale, Restraint Scale, and the Eating Attitudes Test, (2) Scales used for body esteem and desired body change included: Body Esteem Scale, and Stunkard's body silhouettes, (3) Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire was used to measure the impact of Western advertising and media, and (4) demographic questions were also included. Furthermore, body mass index was calculated based on actual measurements of height and weight. Socioeconomic status was measured by having respondents report the number of modern conveniences in the home. The data was collected by the Jordan Department of Statistics (a governmental agency involved in data collection). The response rate was 99.6%. The results indicated that Jordanian women had advanced further through the nutrition transition than originally anticipated. They were restrained and emotional eaters and had high levels of disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. However, these women also had higher than expected body esteem level and desired a healthy body size. Furthermore, urban and rural differences were minimal suggesting that Western influences may be similar across Jordan. As expected, being obese was associated with a desire to lose weight, being a restrained and emotional eater, and having more disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. Similarly, western advertising and media was associated with restrained and emotional eating, desired weight loss, and disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed. |
