The empiric criterion was used for choosing the number of factors (patterns) (Thurstone, 1947), selecting 3. Each factor was given loadings (weights) for all the foods/food groups. Those that received a loading greater than 0.4 were considered foods/food groups that represented the factor (dietary pattern). The dietary patterns were named according to the food items with the greatest loadings and by using the names given to similar patterns by other studies (Sichieri, 2002; Esmaillzadeh et
al., 2007).