Healthy habits in early schoolchildren: adherence to the mediterraneandiet

Resumen

Healthy habits are those healthy practices that promote a good state of healthof people and are beneficial for the organism. They help prevent diseases and generatephysical, psychological and social well-being (İlhan et al., 2019). The school stage isessential for the development of these habits, as it is where the continuous changes ofgrowth take place (Carlos & Amores, 2020). Physical activity and diet are factors closelyrelated to healthy weight and good physical fitness (Moral-garcía et al., 2021). The aimof this study was to determine adherence to the Mediterranean diet in 35 schoolchildrenaged between 4 and 6 years. The statistical programme SPSS version 24.0 was used. TheKIDMED questionnaire (Serra-Majem, et al., 2004) was used to assess adherence to theMediterranean diet. According to BMI, schoolchildren were classified as normal weight,overweight and obese, based on the tables of the Orbegozo Foundation (Sobradillo et al.,2004). The results show that 55% have a high adherence to the Mediterranean diet, 23.4%medium and 21.6% low adherence. With regard to gender, no significant differences inadherence to the Mediterranean diet were found. In some aspects, schoolchildren who aremore concerned with following a good diet are those who are overweight, consuming fishmore frequently (p≤ 0.01) and eating dairy products for breakfast (p≤ 0.05) more oftenthan their normal-weight peers, although they consume more (p≤ 0.05) industrial bakeryproducts than their normal-weight peers. It can be concluded that schoolchildren ingeneral adhere well to the Mediterranean diet, that gender is not a differentiating variableand that the consumption of industrial bakery should be reduced, especially amongoverweight schoolchildren.