Exploring Zambian Diets: Intersections between the Food Environment and Socio-cultural Drivers for Beneficial Health Outcomes

Summary

High-quality diets that (may) include fermented foods such as mabisi, a Zambian traditional fermented milk are recommended to improve health outcomes. This thesis examines how food environments and socio-cultural drivers influence diets in adults, thereby affecting health outcomes such as overweight/obesity, hypertension, type II diabetes, and gut microbiota composition. Using the concept of foodscapes, the study explores why some ethnic groups in Zambia include mabisi in their diets while others do not.

Further, the study identifies factors in the perceived food environment that influence diets in urban versus rural Zambia, with surveys linking the perceived food environment to diet quality and non-communicable disease (NCD) prevalence. Finally, it investigates how diet quality impacts gut microbiota composition and their association with NCDs, underscoring the importance of healthy diets in achieving improved health outcomes.