Cargando…

Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach

A poor diet leads to serious health risks and accounts for a significant proportion of deaths. Young adults are the population whose health behaviors particularly need to be studied in terms of nutrition because they are in a period of life when the effects of nutrition accumulate to health outcomes...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mieziene, Brigita, Emeljanovas, Arunas, Fatkulina, Natalja, Stukas, Rimantas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400829/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32650389
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12072025
_version_ 1783566447666003968
author Mieziene, Brigita
Emeljanovas, Arunas
Fatkulina, Natalja
Stukas, Rimantas
author_facet Mieziene, Brigita
Emeljanovas, Arunas
Fatkulina, Natalja
Stukas, Rimantas
author_sort Mieziene, Brigita
collection PubMed
description A poor diet leads to serious health risks and accounts for a significant proportion of deaths. Young adults are the population whose health behaviors particularly need to be studied in terms of nutrition because they are in a period of life when the effects of nutrition accumulate to health outcomes that usually appear later in life in forms of disease or infirmity. The aim of this study is to examine the dietary pattern and its relationships with physical activity and covariates, such as body mass index, gender, age and education among Lithuanian young adults of 18–36 years old. A cross-sectional study was performed among Lithuanian young people aged 18–36 years. Snowball sampling—a non-probability, convenient sampling strategy—was used. In total, data were collected from 3031 study participants: 1723 (56.8%) were male and 1308 (43.2%) were female. The mean age was 23.72 ± 4.80 years. Adherence to a dietary pattern was evaluated using the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS). Physical activity, height, weight and education data were also gathered. About 7% of young people fully complied with the health-related Mediterranean diet, and one-third had poor compliance. Non-compliance is mostly related to the underconsumption of olive oil, nuts, fish, seafood, legumes and wine, as well as the overconsumption of red meat. The female gender (β = 0.26; p < 0.01), higher education (β = 0.30; p < 0.01) and a sufficient level of physical activity (β = 0.15; p < 0.01) predict a healthier diet. These study results should be considered by nutrition policymakers and public health authorities to improve policies and develop intervention plans for improving the nutrition habits of young adults in order to prevent health-damaging outcomes later in their life.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7400829
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-74008292020-08-07 Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach Mieziene, Brigita Emeljanovas, Arunas Fatkulina, Natalja Stukas, Rimantas Nutrients Article A poor diet leads to serious health risks and accounts for a significant proportion of deaths. Young adults are the population whose health behaviors particularly need to be studied in terms of nutrition because they are in a period of life when the effects of nutrition accumulate to health outcomes that usually appear later in life in forms of disease or infirmity. The aim of this study is to examine the dietary pattern and its relationships with physical activity and covariates, such as body mass index, gender, age and education among Lithuanian young adults of 18–36 years old. A cross-sectional study was performed among Lithuanian young people aged 18–36 years. Snowball sampling—a non-probability, convenient sampling strategy—was used. In total, data were collected from 3031 study participants: 1723 (56.8%) were male and 1308 (43.2%) were female. The mean age was 23.72 ± 4.80 years. Adherence to a dietary pattern was evaluated using the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS). Physical activity, height, weight and education data were also gathered. About 7% of young people fully complied with the health-related Mediterranean diet, and one-third had poor compliance. Non-compliance is mostly related to the underconsumption of olive oil, nuts, fish, seafood, legumes and wine, as well as the overconsumption of red meat. The female gender (β = 0.26; p < 0.01), higher education (β = 0.30; p < 0.01) and a sufficient level of physical activity (β = 0.15; p < 0.01) predict a healthier diet. These study results should be considered by nutrition policymakers and public health authorities to improve policies and develop intervention plans for improving the nutrition habits of young adults in order to prevent health-damaging outcomes later in their life. MDPI 2020-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7400829/ /pubmed/32650389 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12072025 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Mieziene, Brigita
Emeljanovas, Arunas
Fatkulina, Natalja
Stukas, Rimantas
Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach
title Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach
title_full Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach
title_fullStr Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach
title_full_unstemmed Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach
title_short Dietary Pattern and Its Correlates among Lithuanian Young Adults: Mediterranean Diet Approach
title_sort dietary pattern and its correlates among lithuanian young adults: mediterranean diet approach
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400829/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32650389
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12072025
work_keys_str_mv AT miezienebrigita dietarypatternanditscorrelatesamonglithuanianyoungadultsmediterraneandietapproach
AT emeljanovasarunas dietarypatternanditscorrelatesamonglithuanianyoungadultsmediterraneandietapproach
AT fatkulinanatalja dietarypatternanditscorrelatesamonglithuanianyoungadultsmediterraneandietapproach
AT stukasrimantas dietarypatternanditscorrelatesamonglithuanianyoungadultsmediterraneandietapproach