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Topical Area: Nutritional Epidemiology

Nutritional Epidemiology (II) (Poster Session)

(P29-017-23) Adherence to Mediterranean Diet in Italy: Results From the ARIANNA Project

Monday, July 24, 2023

12:45 PM – 1:45 PM ET

Location: Poster Board 143

Presenting Author(s)

Dario Gregori, PhD (he/him/his)

Full Professor of biostatistics
University of Padova
Padova, Veneto, Italy

Co-Author(s)

GL

Giulia Lorenzoni

Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health (University of Padova)
JG

Jacopo Gallocchio

Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health (University of Padova)
EC

Erica Cardamone

ISS
MS

Marco Silano, MD

ISS
Rome, Lazio, Italy

Disclosure(s):

Dario Gregori, PhD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Objectives: Mediterranean diet is associated with a lower risk of noncommunicable diseases. However, recent data showed a decreasing trend in compliance with the Mediterranean diet. The present survey aims to evaluate compliance with Mediterranean dietary patterns in the Italian population.

Methods: Web-based survey. Two validated questionnaires were employed to assess compliance with Mediterranean dietary patterns. The KIDMED for children and the MDSS for adults. Furthermore, subjects were asked about socio-demographic characteristics, lifestyle habits, and anthropometric characteristics. For the present analysis, only data on adults (≥18 years) were considered. Conditional inference trees were employed to characterize the level of adherence to the Mediterranean diet according to the subjects' socio-demographic characteristics.

Results: Survey respondents were 3748, the 21-40 was the age group most represented, and the female gender was the most prevalent (85%). The highest proportion of survey respondents was only partially compliant to the Mediterranean dietary pattern (84%), 11% was not compliance, and only 5% of the respondents was highly compliant. The algorithm succeeded in the identification of four well-defined profiles of subjects. Women and men regularly performing physical activity at least twice weekly (Profiles 1 and 2) were likelier to comply with the Mediterranean diet. Conversely, women and men not performing physical activity or doing physical activity less than twice a week and having kids (Profiles 3 and 4) were less likely to comply with the Mediterranean diet.

Conclusions: The present results help characterize subjects' socio-demographic characteristics according to the likelihood of being compliant with the Mediterranean diet. Given the worryingly low prevalence of adherence to Mediterranean dietary patterns, such information would be useful to target public health campaigns aimed at improving nutritional habits.

Funding Sources: None