Research Article The Association between Index of Nutritional Quality (INQ) and Obesity: Baseline Data of Kharameh Cohort Maryam Jalali , 1 Parisa Keshani , 1 Masoumeh Ghoddusi Johari , 2 Ramin Rezaeianzadeh , 3 Seyed Vahid Hosseini , 1 and Abbas Rezaianzadeh 1 1 Colorectal Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 2 Breast Diseases Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 3 Experimental Medicine Program, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Correspondence should be addressed to Masoumeh Ghoddusi Johari; m.ghoddusi94@yahoo.com Received 21 May 2022; Revised 16 October 2022; Accepted 9 November 2022; Published 17 November 2022 Academic Editor: Mihajlo Jakovljevic Copyright © 2022 Maryam Jalali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Obesity is an increasing problem that can lead to noncommunicable diseases. The role of dietary factors on one’s obesity is confirmed in many studies. One nutritional approach that can be used for assessment of the foods and diets is the Index of Nutritional Quality (INQ). Our study is aimed at exploring the association between INQ and obesity. Our hypothesis is that enriched and high-quality diets reduce the risk of overweight or obesity. This study was carried out on 6248 overweight and obese participants, from whom 4356 (69.7%) and 1892 (30.3%) were overweight and obese, respectively. To assess the dietary intake for the participants, a valid food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) with 130 food items was utilized. The analysis revealed an inverse association between the overweight and the INQ of iron, thiamin, riboflavin, B6, folate, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and vitamin C and E. For the obese group, this inverse association was found for iron, B6, folate, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and vitamin C and E. These results approved our hypothesis that a rich nutrition diet may lead to a lower risk of obesity. 1. Introduction Obesity is an increasing problem that has recently affected both developed and developing countries and can lead to non- communicable diseases including diabetes, heart disease, and lower life expectancy [1–4]. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than one billion over- weight people in the world, 300 million of whom are reported as obese people [5–7]. Based on recent studies, a nutrition transition has hap- pened in Iran [8]. In this period, the dietary pattern and phys- ical activity of people have changed; their diet is rich in sugar and fats, and fiber consumption has reduced. Therefore, over- weight and obesity have increased [8, 9]. In Iran, the preva- lence of overweight is reported about 22% and 40% among the 15–39 and 40–69 age category, respectively [8]. The role of dietary factors on the individuals’ obesity was discussed in previous studies [10–13]. While a variety of methods exist for dietary intake analysis, it is proposed that the tools for accessing the overall dietary quality should be applied rather than the nutrients separately. The underlying deduction is that analyzing dietary consumption as a total index is more straightforward than inspecting every dietary component [14]. One nutritional approach that can be used for qualitative and quantitative assessment of the foods and diets is the Index of Nutritional Quality (INQ). One prominent advantage of INQ is that by applying this method, single diets, meals, and food can be analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively [14–16]. In addition, in comparison to the alternative methods, the effect of energy intake is adjusted in INQ computation [17]. INQ is a fraction whose numerator and denominator are Hindawi BioMed Research International Volume 2022, Article ID 8321596, 8 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8321596