Evaluation of Dietary Intake and Food Insecurity: A Case Study on Selected Households from Lahore, Pakistan

Background: Food insecurity consistently challenges middle income countries, including Pakistan. The aim of this study was to evaluate the dietary food intake of the households in the selected location through a semistructured questionnaire. Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out among 500 households comprised 2094 participants to investigate dietary intake and status of food insecurity. Furthermore, sociodemographic and weekly dietary food intake was collected through a semistructured questionnaire in 2019. Those households who assent to participate were included in the study. Results: Mean household size was 5.80 ±2.05 comprised 49.27% male and 50.61% female. Six food types were commonly consumed in the study population. Among these foods (g/capita/day) starch remained at the top 734.43 followed by fruits 256.02 and vegetables 89.77. These data highlighted limited dietary diversity and reduced dietary intake. The energy intake (per capita/day) from the food basket, contribution of the starch was the highest 32.37% versus protein 14.43%, milk 14.08%, vegetables 1.31%, and fruit 7.79% with an overall calories intake 81.08% from all food groups except tea. Finally, of the 500 households, 42.4% people were below the poverty line, 41.8% people at the poverty line, and 15.8% people were above the poverty line. Conclusion: The results showed that dietary intake of the participants was below the reference intake, demonstrating food insecurity and unbalanced diet.