Nutritional quality and carbon footprint of university students’ diets: results from the EHU12/24 study

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate diets in terms of nutritional characteristics and quality from the perspectives of health, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs) and possible associations with each other in a representative sample of students at a public university. Design: Cross-sectional. Dietary intake was evaluated with a validated food frequency questionnaire, and diet quality was assessed through the Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2010) and MedDietScore (MDS). GHGE data were obtained from the literature. In addition, sex, socioeconomic status (SES) and body fat (BF) status were analysed as covariates. Setting: Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. Participants: 26,165 healthy adults aged 18-28 years. Results: Student diets were characterised by low consumption of carbohydrates (38·72% of total energy intake (TEI)) and a high intake of lipids (39·08% of TEI). Over half of the participants had low dietary quality. The low-emitting diets were more likely to be consumed by subjects with low HEI-2010 scores (β: 0·039 kg eCO2/1000 kcal per day) and high MDS scores (β: −0·023 kg eCO2/1000 kcal per day), after controlling for sex, SES and BF status. Both the low-emitting and healthy diets were more likely to be consumed by women and by those with normal BF percentage. Conclusions: UPV/EHU university students’ diets were characterised by moderate quality from a nutritional perspective and moderate variation in the size of carbon footprints. In this population, diets of the highest quality were not always those with the lowest diet-related GHGEs; this relationship depended in part on the constructs and scoring criteria of diet quality indices used.

Factors Related to Diet Quality: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1055 University Students

“…Only 17.4% of the participants reported having a healthy diet. The present results are similar to those previously obtained by using SHEI to study Spanish university students [ 22 , 41 , 42 , 43 ]. They are, however, distinctly lower than the results from studies of the general Spanish population, for which between 28% and 35.8% of the participants reported having a healthy diet [ 26 , 27 , 29 ].…”

Weekend–Weekday Differences in Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet among Spanish University Students

“…In the total monitoring period: Adherence to the MD (by mean scores of the AMD index and adequate adherence score (≥9)) was low ( Table 3 ). This is similar to previous recent literature among Spanish university students (although using other AMD indexes) [ 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ]. Among the categories, gender, BMI and physical activity status provided statistically significant differences (although physical activity status was the only one to show any statistically significant differences, in both the AMD index and adequate adherence score (≥9); gender and BMI only in the AMD index) ( Table 3 ).…”

Nutrient and energy intake of modern university students

“…неблагоприятные пищевые привычки. Так, изменения в нутритивном статусе у обучающихся связаны с нехваткой времени на полноценный прием пищи, недостаточной двигательной активностью, нарушением режима обучения и отдыха, а порой и нежеланием затрачивать время на приготовление еды [3,4]. Именно период обучения в университете считается решающим для формирования привычек здорового питания, а также усвоения организмом питательных веществ, что все вместе составляет прочную основу для хорошего здоровья на протяжении всей жизни.…”