Association between physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep and eating habits of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Physical activity, sedentary behavior and sleep are circadian cycle behaviors with a strong impact on human health. Food appears to be influenced by these behaviors in both positive and negative ways. Objective: To evaluate the association between physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep and eating habits of university students. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study, composed of 84 students, aged 18 or over. Participants wore an accelerometer (ActiGraph wGT3X-bt) on their waist for seven consecutive days to assess physical activity. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Sedentary Behavior Questionnaire were used to assess sleep and time spent in sedentary behavior, respectively. In addition, eating habits were assessed. Analyzes: Linear regression analysis was used to investigate the association between behaviors and healthy and unhealthy food scores. The IBM SPSS 25.0 program was used, with a significance level of p<0.05 and a confidence interval of 95%. Results: The total time in sedentary behavior (beta<0.001; p=0.063) and screen time during the week (beta=0.002; p=0.024) resulted in an increase in unhealthy food consumption scores. Additional hours of sleep increased the healthy food consumption score (beta=0.413; p=0.0043). Conclusion: Time spent in vigorous physical activity reduced the chance of more frequent consumption of unhealthy foods. Sedentary behavior due to screen use increased the chance of higher frequencies of consuming unhealthy foods. Finally, additional hours of sleep increased the chance of more frequent consumption of unhealthy foods.