Prevalencia y asociación entre factores de estilo de vida (dieta, actividad física, consumo de alcohol y tabaco) en estudiantes universitarios de Zamora

Laburpena

Evidence shows that the health is linked to lifestyle factors such as eating habits, physical activity, smoking habit, alcohol consumption, etc. Previous studies indicate that university students exhibit improper diet and physical activities, and behavioural health risks, such as tobacco use, alcohol and substance abuse. In Spain, university students represent a great segment of the young adult population. In addition to this, young people are in a critical period for acquiring lifestyles that will remain for the rest of their lives and will influence their health. For this reason, it’s necessary to develop programs of promotion of healthy life habits and prevention of diseases. In order to this, it’s essential to determine the factors that are important in the lifestyles of the youth. Most of the studies have been focused in the health effects of each factor of lifestyle in an independent way, despite the investigation has shown that these factors coexist. Nowadays there are very few studies analysing the whole group of lifestyle factors in University students. Therefore, the overall objective of this thesis is to assess the prevalence of lifestyle factors (food habits, physical activities, tobacco and alcohol) and the overweight and obesity of Zamora’s university students, as well as the association between them The prevalence of underweight, normal-weight, and excessive weight (overweight and obesity) in the Zamora’s university students were 5.2%, 70.4% and 24.4%, respectively. Underweight was found mainly in women (1.9% in men and 6.3% in women), and no differences were observed regarding to the excessive weight when the sample was stratified by sex, academic degree, place of residence or others socio-demographic factors. Furthermore, no statistical significant differences between weight, height and body mass index (BMI) measures were found. The prevalence of the abdominal obesity, measured with the waist circumference (≥102 cm in men and ≥88 cm in women), was of 4.7% (9 women and 1 man). This prevalence was higher when the waist-to-height ratio was considered, with a 12.7% (13.8% in women and 9.4% in men). There were no significant differences when genders were compared. At least 95% of the Zamora’s university students were consumers of fruits and vegetables, cereals, pulses, tubercles and olive and sunflower oil. Nevertheless, the proportion of this basic food in the diet was below the recommendations for the Spanish population (median consumption servings/day or servings/week in the case of pulses: 0.9, 0.7, 2.8, 1.5 and 1.4, respectively). Overall, 67.4% of the students were consumers of nuts, but they also were below the recommendations for this group of food (0.7 servings/week). It was also reported a high consumption of meat (95.3% of the consumers; 6.0 servings/week), meat products (100% of consumer; 4.6 servings/week), sweets, pastries and cakes (11.8 servings/week), and food that should be occasionally consumed (salty snacks, soda drinks, sauces, etc.). No statistically significant differences by gender and BMI were found. The Zamora’s university students showed a medium-low adherence to the Mediterranean Diet. Overall, 28% of the students had a good adherence to the Mediterranean diet (i.e. 6-9 points in the Mediterranean Diet Score, MDS), and just a 4.7% reached a punctuation ≥5 in the Mediterranean Adequacy Index (MAI). No significant differences in the distribution of subjects (%) according to the degree of adherence to that Mediterranean diet and to the sociodemographic variables were found. In addition, two dietary patterns were identified: the “Occidental” dietary pattern and the “Mediterranean” dietary pattern. The energy intake of the Zamora’s university students was 2052 kcal per day. The caloric profile was unbalanced, with an intake of proteins and fats above the recommendations (20.1% and 37.5% respectively), and an intake of carbohydrates below the recommendations (41.5%). Regarding to the lipid profile, the intake of the saturated fatty acids and cholesterol was above the recommendations (13.4% and 202.2 mg/1000 kcal respectively). Moreover, fiber intake was below the recommendations (17.9 g/day), with a percentage of women that accomplished the recommendation greater than men (31.7% and 17.5% respectively). Regarding the micronutrients, all the recommendations were fulfilled, except for the vitamin E. However, the intakes of vitamin A, Ca, Fe, K and Mg were below the Dietary References Intakes in a 30-40% of students. The prevalence of high, moderate and low physical activity practice were 50.2%, 35.2% and 14.6%, respectively. No statistically significant differences between physical activity levels and sex, academic degree and BMI were found. Nonetheless, students with high level of physical activity also declared to be sitting more hours. The Zamora’s university students declared drinking alcohol mainly on weekends (90.7%). The preferred drink for students was beer (94.6% of consumers on weekdays and 62% on weekends) and mixed drinks (49.5% on weekdays and 87.6% on weekends). In addition, 21.6% of students reported that they smoke daily, and 10.3% were occasionally smokers. The university students are in a nutritional transition, with a diet that is far away from the actual recommendations and the prototype of a healthy and prudent diet, the Mediterranean Diet. In a positive way, we can declare that, in general, they present an appropriate weight and more than the half of the students perform physical activity regularly. Nevertheless, the alcoholic prevalence is high. For this reason, it’s necessary to develop programs of promotion of healthy life habits in the university population to prevent the possible appearance of diseases in the adulthood.