Evaluation of Healthy Eating Index in Mashhad Central Prison in the year 2008se

Healthy Eating Index (HEI) was first developed to assess and monitor nutritional status of Americans by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1989. HEI is one of the scoring systems in nutritional researches. Since prison is an isolated place and prisoner’s state of health to some degree depends on the food consumed، therefore the nutritional status by this index might have some implementations for the policy makers. In a cross sectional study 435 prisoners (48 females and 387 males) were recruited using stratified random sampling method proportional to the ward population. Food intake from different sources in prison was assessed by analysing prison food menu، measuring wasted foods and food bought and provided by prison supermarkets. HEI score in Mashhad Central Prison was 80 percent of the total calculated score. Scores for consumption of fruit، meat and poultry، dairy products and food variety were 0، 4، 9. 5 and 9 respectively. Other food groups concerned with vegetable and cereals had scores of 10. Sodium intake representing the salt consumption was not measured. The results of this study showed that eating pattern of prisoners is healthy but steps might be taken to improve the quality of the food consumed.