Determining the cultural change in the nutritional habits of Turkish immigrants living in the United States.

Nutritional habits of different immigrant groups in the US have been studied to date. So far, There is no study on Turkish immigrants. This study was planned and conducted to evaluate the cultural changes of Nutritional Habits in immigrant Turkish society. In this study, 19 years of age and older adult individuals were born in Turkey, who emigrated to the United States and they live in Indianapolis-Indiana and surrounding areas were taken. The study was conducted between December 2017 and April 2019. Individuals who do not have any chronic-metabolic or psychiatric diseases, are not addictive and do not use any drugs that affect food intake, non-pregnant and non-lactating were included. The study was conducted on a total of 87 individuals, of which 61 were female and 26 were male. Personal information and anthropometric measurements of the individuals were recorded in the questionnaire, Western Dietary Acculturation was used to determine of dietary acculturation, and 24-hour food consumption record was used to determine the nutritional status and the food consumption frequency form was used to determine the eating habits. The mean age of the participants was 39.9 ± 10.27 years in males and 39.4 ± 7.71 years in females. 28.7% of individuals have been living in the USA for 5-10 years, 27.6% over 15 years and 25.3% for 2-5 years. After migration, 52% of the individuals stated that their eating habits changed, 17% definitely changed, 23% stated that there was no change. The Western diet scale scores of the individuals who stated that their eating habits did not change were lower, changed and those who said that they certainly changed the western diet scale scores were higher (p <0.05). It was found that both men and women skipped meals less frequently before migration and more frequently after migration. The most skipped meals before migration was lunch for male while breakfast was skipped in women, both men and women were the most skipped meals is lunch after migration. The mean Western scale score of the individuals living alone and those living with the Turkish spouse and family was 7.5 ± 2.37, 5.36 ± 1.92, respectively (p <0.05). The mean body weight of women was 65.0 ± 9.89 kg and the mean body weight of men was 83.1 ± 11.43 kg. When body weight changes are evaluated after migration; mean weight gain was 5.6 ± 6.15 kg for females and 8.1 ± 7.48 kg for males. The relationship between weight change after migration to America and Western scale score was found to be significant (p<0.05). The mean BMI in women was 24.8 ± 4.54 kg/m2 and in men it was 27.2 ± 3.11 kg/m2. When the BMI of the individuals were compared according to the duration of their stay in the USA, the difference between the BMI of those who lived 11-15 years and those who lived in the USA over 16 years was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The relationship between the Western diet scale and physical activity, amount of CHO consumed, amount of glucose, amount of fructose and Waist / Hip ratio were found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). When the nutritional status and food consumption habits of the individuals were evaluated, the average energy intake was found to be 1594.3 ± 573.34kcal (891.9-3593kcal) in males and 1306.4 ± 386.49kcal (336.1-2280.8 kcal) in women. In general, after the migration, it was determined that the consumption of yoghurt and ayran was decreased. White cheese, cheddar cheese consumption decreased while cream cheese consumption increased. Red meat, chicken, egg consumption of individuals increased. While the consumption of legumes, whole grain / whole wheat bread and breakfast cereals increased, the consumption of bulgur and white bread decreased. There was also a decrease in the consumption of pastries. There was a decrease in consumption of green leafy and other vegetables, consumption of fruit. The highest consumption increase was in coffee consumption. There are differences in nutritional habits, food consumption and anthropometric measurements of post-migration societies. It is important to understand and evaluate the cultural change of the diet in order to protect and improve the health of migrants by creating awareness for nutrition and diet-related preventable diseases that may occur after migration.