title: Dietary attitudes and behaviours of women in China after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in three seismically different zones.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The sudden occurrence of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake not only devastated people's health, but also may have impacted on the psychological and dietary attitudes and behaviours of the survivors. Although the influence of natural disaster on people's health has been extensively investigated, there is a lack of information about the effects on people's dietary attitudes and behaviours. Our aim was to evaluate the influence of the Wenchuan earthquake on the dietary attitudes and behaviours of adult women from different zones of China in July 2008.
  
  
  METHODS
  736 women, aged 18-55 years old, were randomly selected and interviewed after the earthquake. Women were selected from three zones: the earthquake zone (n=206), the shaking zone (n=326), and the non-seismic zone (n=204).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although nutrition knowledge mean scores of women in the three zones were relatively low, the women in the earthquake zone became more vigilant about the nutritional value and acceptability of food than women in the other two zones. Nevertheless, women in the earthquake zone also developed some arguably untoward, if understandable, behaviour after the disaster. They increased their consumption and tendency to stock instant food and snack items. That said, these findings were modulated by other factors such as age, residence, Body Mass Index (BMI), and nutrition knowledge itself, as were post-earthquake eating behaviours, as judged by the ordinal logistic regression analyses performed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The major Wenchuan earthquake was associated with differentials in dietary attitudes and behaviours among women by seismic zone.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Ling-Li
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Feng-Gang
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Xiang-Long
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Behavioral and Environmental Health, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS, USA.
authors.forename: Manoj
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China. Email: zhaoyongzb@qq.com; zhaoyong@cqmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001519:Behavior; D002681:China; D004032:Diet / Q000523:psychology*; D004190:Disasters; D055866:Earthquakes; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008875:Middle Aged; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology