Food Habit Changes In a Group Of Immigrant Iranian Women In Uppsala

decisions made by women also affect the health of their families. To intervene successfully on negative aspects of dietary acculturation in a new environment it is therefore important to study culture-specific food habits and processes by which immigrant women incorporate new and potentially less desirable dietary practices following migration (Satia et al., 2000). Sweden is one of the countries where immigration is making a strong impact. During the course of a few decades, Sweden progressed from being a country of emigration to one where about 20% of the population has immigrant backgrounds. Immigrants in Sweden generally live under adverse socio-economic conditions, are discriminated against (Rydgren, 2004) and have poorer health than the rest of the population (Sundquist, 2002). The prevalence of chronic conditions that etiologically have a nutrition component is higher among immigrants than in Swedes. For example women from Poland, Eastern and Southern Europe have higher risk for developing breast cancer. Being overweight and obesity is increasing and the incidence is higher among women from Southern Europe, the Middle East, Chile, Finland, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia and Turkey than in Swedish women (Sundquist et al., 1999, Lahman et al., 2000, Lissner et al., 2000, Wändell et al., 2003). Immigrant women from Iran and Turkey run an elevated risk for developing cardiovascular disease (Gadd et al., 2003, Daryani et al., 2004). There is thus a need to explore home country food patterns and the process of dietary change among immigrants from non-west European countries in Sweden. For this purpose a series of studies of dietary change among first generation immigrant women from four different countries (Iran, Turkey, Palestina, Eritrea), residing in Uppsala county, were carried out during the period 1996-1998. This paper presents findings from a group of women from Iran. Results from the other groups will be published separately.