Abstract
Obesity, low levels of physical fitness, and unhealthy eating patterns are responsible for part of the health problems of adolescents today. The current study aimed at examining the association between the adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD), through each answer to the items of the Adherence to the MD Questionnaire (KIDMED), and physical fitness with body composition parameters (body mass index (BMI), percentage of body fat, and waist circumference) in 1717 European adolescents (N = 900 boys, N = 817 girls). Data of body composition, physical fitness results, and the answers to KIDMED were analyzed by the Student’s t-test. Additionally, the effect size (ES) was calculated and a Chi-square test analyzed the proportion of participants with and without over waist circumference, overfat, and overweight in each KIDMED question. The relative risk of suffering over waist circumference, overfat and overweight in relation to the responses was calculated by Odd-Ratio. Adherence to the MD did not influence the condition of over waist circumference, overfat and overweight, although certain dietary habits were identified as risk factors for their development. Over waist circumference, overfat, and overweight boys and girls presented higher levels of body mass, waist circumference, body fat percentage, and BMI (p < 0.001; ES = 1.73–3.38), as well as lower levels of all the parameters of the physical fitness analyzed (p < 0.001; ES = 0.45–1.08), except the handgrip test. A direct relationship between fitness and over waist circumference, overfat, and overweight was found.
Highlights
The global prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has reached worrying levels [1,2]
If we take into account the results regarding the body mass index (BMI) of the overweight and obese subjects of the present sample, it can be seen how these are slightly higher than those obtained in studies with a similar population (27.04% vs. 21–23%) [27,28,29,30,31,32], both are in line with the increase and prevalence of overweight and current obesity in the adolescent population [3]
The consumption of fish, together with vegetables and fruit, seems to be a pending task in adolescence, the results found for N-over waist circumference (Owaist) boys coincide with similar studies where children and adolescents had a regular consumption of fish [35,38]
Summary
The global prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has reached worrying levels [1,2]. The global rates of obesity of the child and adolescent population have multiplied by 10 worldwide in individuals from 5 to 19 years of age and increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016. They did not reach the threshold of obesity, 213 million of this population presented overweight in 2016 [3]. As abdominal fat especially has a great impact on health [5], it is important to include other forms of assessing obesity that take this parameter into account. It is essential to complement the BMI assessment with both, a record of body fat percentages and the waist circumference [4]
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