Adherence to Mediterranean Diet in university students from southern Spain depending on social and academic factors and religious

Introduction: Incorporation of young people to higher education implies the emancipation of the family home, some to share a flat with other students or to live in university residences. This fact can influence at behavioral level (identity and personality) and health. Specifically, social and academic factors can be related to diet in this stage. This study aims to describe the level of adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MD) and its association with social and academic factors in a sample of Spanish university students, as well as to determine the relationship between level of adherence to MD and sex, place of residence, degree and religious tendency. Material and Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample composed by 597 university students aged between 17 and 20 years old (M=19.04; DT=2.71), where 156 were men (26.1%) and 441 women (73.9%) from the province of Granada and the transboundary cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The Questionnaire of Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet and an ad hoc questionnaire for social factors were used to assess the variables for this study. It was assessed the prevalence of MD and its association with socio-academic factors using a binary logistic regression. Results: The results showed that a 70% of the subjects presented a high adherence to MD and a 63.8% live in their family home. It was shown that students living in cross-border cities (Ceuta and Melilla) had three times more risk of having a worse adherence to MD than those of the peninsula. No differences were found in the dietary pattern according to sex, scope of knowledge, domicile or religious tendency. Conclusions: It is shown that the quality of the dietary pattern of Spanish university students varies according to social factors, such as the place of residence and the university campus.