Comparison of Dietary Intakes of Husbands and Wives

This study was designed to examine the similarities in husbands’ and wives’ dietary intake and to investigate these similarities in relationship to the life stage of the family. A semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire was completed separately by 151 married couples. Intraclass correlation coefficients for the energy-adjusted nutrient intake of all husbands and wives ranged from 0.04 for iron intake to 0.38 for saturated fat intake. Simple linear regression of the husband's intake (dependent) on the wife's intake (independent) was significantly different from zero for most energy-adjusted nutrients. However, this pattern was not consistent across the family life stages.This suggests that although spouses’ nutrient intakes are more similar than different, one spouse's nutrient intake may not be a particularly good indicator of the intake of the other spouse.These results have important implications for the design and evaluation of interventions to change the dietary habits of family members.