AUTHOR=Melguizo-Ibáñez Eduardo , Zurita-Ortega Félix , Ubago-Jiménez José Luis , Badicu Georgian , Yagin Fatma Hilal , González-Valero Gabriel , Ardigò Luca Paolo , Puertas-Molero Pilar 

TITLE=Are there differences between Mediterranean diet and the consumption of harmful substances on quality of life?—an explanatory model in secondary education regarding gender

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nutrition

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1283195

DOI=10.3389/fnut.2023.1283195

ISSN=2296-861X

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Background</title><p>Adolescence is a key life stage in human development. It is during this stage of development that healthy and physical behaviors are acquired that will last into adulthood. Gender differences in the acquisition of these behaviors have been observed. This research aims to (a) study the levels of Mediterranean diet adherence, quality of life and alcohol and tobacco consumption as regarding the gender of the participants and (b) study the effects of the variable adherence to the Mediterranean diet, alcohol consumption and tobacco consumption on quality of life as a function of the gender of the participants.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Methods</title><p>A non-experimental, cross-sectional, exploratory study was carried out in a sample of 1,057 Spanish adolescents (Average Age = 14.19; Standard Deviation = 2.87).</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Results</title><p>The comparative analysis shows that the male teenagers shows a higher Mediterranean diet adherence compared to the male adolescents (<italic>p</italic> ≤ 0.05) and a higher consumption of alcoholic beverages (<italic>p</italic> ≤ 0.05). On the contrary, adolescent girls show a higher consumption of alcoholic beverages than male participants (<italic>p</italic> ≤ 0.05). The exploratory analysis indicates that for boys, alcohol consumption has a beneficial effect on the quality of life of adolescents (<italic>β</italic> = 0.904; <italic>p</italic> ≤ 0.001).</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Conclusion</title><p>In this case, participants show differences in the levels of Mediterranean diet adherence, consumption of harmful substances and quality of life according to gender. Likewise, there are different effects between the variables according to gender. Therefore, gender is a key factor to consider during adolescence.</p></sec>