Evaluation of probiotic food consumption and nutritional status of university students between 18-24 years of age in terms of chronotype

This thesis deals with the evaluation of probiotic consumption and nutritional status in young people in terms of chronotype. The study was conducted on university students between the ages of 18-24. The main purpose of the study is to understand the healthy eating habits of young people and to evaluate the relationship between chronotype. In the study, firstly, the literature review was conducted and the existing information on chronotype, probiotic consumption and nutritional status in young people was compiled. Then, the probiotic consumption status and nutritional status of young people were examined through a survey study. The survey data were combined with the standard scale used to determine chronotype. Morningness-Eveningness Type Scale was applied to determine the chronotype type in the survey. The findings obtained show that there are similar relationships between probiotic consumption and nutritional habits among chronotype types. When the data were evaluated, it was shown that the probiotic consumption rates of the university students participating in the study were high (88.8%) and this situation was the same for the three chronotype types. It was found in our study that there was no statistically significant difference between the probiotic food consumption status of the participants and their chronotypes (p>0.05). In addition, when the correlation between the scale score and anthropometric parameters was examined, it was found that there was no significant relationship between the scale score and age (p=0.596), body weight (p=0.996) and BMI (p=0.587) variables (p>0.05). Again, it was concluded that the eating habits of the individuals participating in the study were similar to each other regardless of their chronotypes. It can be concluded that more studies are needed to understand the relationship between chronotype and nutrition and probiotic consumption.