Beta
384573

Nutrition Literacy, Mediterranean Diet adherence and lifestyle of Adolescents, Giza, Egypt.

Article

Last updated: 03 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

-

Abstract

Adolescence is a critical time in life when health behavior, including eating habits becomes established. Nutrition literacy is the ability of individuals to acquire nutritional knowledge and skills required for making proper nutrition decisions. Mediterranean Diet (MD) is a nutritional strategy that encompasses the entire lifestyle, as it is complemented with proper sleep and physical activity. Despite the MD's numerous benefits adolescents are moving away from it affected by the phenomenon of nutrition transition and westernization of diet, because of globalization and urbanization. Assessing adolescents' nutrition literacy can assist policymakers in developing effective health-promoting initiatives, improving the nutritional status of adolescents and enhancing their health and quality of life.The objective was to assess nutrition literacy status among early adolescents, their adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD)and lifestyle. A cross-sectional design performed among a sample of adolescents (350) in Giza,Egypt. Nutrition literacy was assessed using the 'Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale'. Dietary intake was evaluated through a 24-hour food recall, while adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MD) was assessed using the 'Mediterranean Diet Quality Index' among the adolescents and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was used to assess physical activity. The studied adolescents showed poor level of nutrition literacy scoring 39.05 ± 19.87, the majority of participants (88%) didn't receive nutrition education at school. The mean nutrition literacy score is significantly higher among adolescents who were highly adherent to Mediterranean diet (scored >8 in KIDMED index score), with high level of practicing physical activity, practicing more healthy eating habits, and reported less screen time exposure. In conclusion the study indicated suboptimal nutrition literacy among adolescents with significant positive correlation to Mediterranean diet adherence and engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviors such as maintaining healthy eating habits, performing physical activity and reducing screen time exposure.

DOI

10.21608/ejnh.2024.384573

Keywords

Nutrition literacy, Adolescents, diet, Life Style, Egypt

Authors

First Name

Hend

Last Name

Ibrahim

MiddleName

Samy

Affiliation

Public health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Eman

Last Name

ElSebaie

MiddleName

Hany

Affiliation

Public health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Alshaimaa

Last Name

Abdelmoaty

MiddleName

Mohamed

Affiliation

Public health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

19

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

50856

Issue Date

2024-07-01

Receive Date

2024-10-07

Publish Date

2024-07-01

Page Start

1

Page End

16

Print ISSN

1687-7950

Online ISSN

2535-1559

Link

https://ejnh.journals.ekb.eg/article_384573.html

Detail API

https://ejnh.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=384573

Order

384,573

Type

Original Article

Type Code

443

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Nutrition and Health

Publication Link

https://ejnh.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Nutrition Literacy, Mediterranean Diet adherence and lifestyle of Adolescents, Giza, Egypt.

Details

Type

Article

Created At

23 Dec 2024