Factors affecting the adherence of nutrition and dietetics students to the Mediterranean diet: A cross-sectional study

This research was carried out with 272 students from the department of nutrition and dietetics in Yeditepe University and Istanbul Bilgi University between the dates of December 2021. The study was conducted among 261 women and 11 men students between the ages of 18-35 years after ethics committee approval. Online questionnaires including sociodemographic information, Mediterranean Diet Adherence Scale, Pittsburg Sleep Scale were used for data collection. 21% of the students had high a Mediterranean diet adherence, 32% of them had acceptable adherence and 47.1% of them had low adherence. It was found that 44.7% of the students had good sleep quality and 52.2% had poor sleep quality. There was no significant difference between the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Scale and the students' age, sex, body mass index, smoking, place of residence and economic status, sleep duration and sleep quality (p>0.05). The number of married was very small so we could not evaluate marital status. There was statistically significant difference between the classes, physical activity and using alcohol according to the adherence levels of the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Scale (p<0.05). Considering that university students are at risk in terms of unhealthy nutrition due to the dynamic environment they live in, being away from family life, friend circle, an irregular life, poor quality sleep, measures should be taken to increase their adaptation to the Mediterranean diet. Keywords: Adherence to the Mediterranean diet, university students, PSQI sleep quality index