Paternal Diet before Conception and Its Social Determinants in the Elfe Cohort

Nutrients. 2022 Sep 27;14(19):4008. doi: 10.3390/nu14194008.

Abstract

This study aimed to characterize paternal diet during the peri-conception period and its associated characteristics. These cross-sectional analyses were based on 998 fathers from the French nationwide ELFE birth cohort recruited in 2011. Fathers' diet before mothers' pregnancies was assessed by a 46-item food frequency questionnaire. Six exploratory dietary patterns were identified by principal component analysis: "Diverse diet", "Balanced", "Alcohol", "Snacking", "Bread and cheese", and "Processed products". Older age was related to higher scores for the "Balanced", "Alcohol", and "Snacking" patterns, and high education level with high scores on the "Balanced" pattern and low scores on the "Processed products" pattern. Unemployment and having a first child were related to high scores on the "Alcohol" pattern. Smoking was positively related to "Alcohol" and "Processed products" patterns. A restrictive diet was associated with high scores on the "Balanced" and "Processed products" patterns and low scores on "Alcohol", "Snacking", and "Bread and cheese" patterns. Maternal dietary patterns, identified in a previous analysis, were moderately and positively related to the similar patterns among fathers. These findings are important for screening fathers at risk of a suboptimal diet and for accounting for this factor in future studies to examine the specific influence of paternal diet on a child's health and development.

Keywords: dietary patterns; familial characteristics; fathers; principal component analysis; socioeconomic position.

MeSH terms

  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Diet
  • Fathers*
  • Feeding Behavior
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mothers / education
  • Pregnancy
  • Social Determinants of Health*

Grants and funding

This study was funded by two grants from the French National Research Agency (ANR-12-DSSA-0001, within the framework “Social determinants of health”; and ANR-19-CE36-0006). The ELFE survey is a joint project between the French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), in partnership with the French blood transfusion service (Etablissement français du sang, EFS), Santé publique France, the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), the Direction générale de la santé (DGS, part of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs), the Direction générale de la prévention des risques (DGPR, Ministry for the Environment), the Direction de la recherche, des études, de l’évaluation et des statistiques (DREES, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs), the Département des études, de la prospective et des statistiques (DEPS, Ministry of Culture), and the Caisse nationale des allocations familiales (CNAF), with the support of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Institut national de la jeunesse et de l’éducation populaire (INJEP). Via the RECONAI platform, it receives a government grant managed by the National Research Agency under the “Investissements d’avenir” programme (ANR-11-EQPX-0038, ANR-19-COHO-0001). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.