Living Alone: Associations with Diet and Health in the Spanish Young Adult Population

Abstract

Eating together as a family has important health benefits, as the diet is more balanced and of a higher quality. Eating together is also a factor in the prevention of diet-related diseases. The promotion of family and shared meals is currently a public health strategy. The aim of this research was to study the eating habits of the Spanish young adult population and their impact on health. An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out using surveys. A questionnaire was designed and validated to explore a set of variables related to food and health. The dissemination was carried out through social networks by means of an online form, using non-probabilistic snowball sampling to obtain a sample of 17,969 subjects aged between 18 and 45 years. We found statistically significant differences between people living in a family home compared to people living outside a family home in the healthy eating index for the Spanish population, fish consumption, and fried food consumption. This suggests that the nutrition of people living in a family home is healthier, although their BMI is higher. People living together have a statistically higher healthy eating index value than people living alone; consume fast food, fried food, and ultra-processed food less frequently; and eat fish more often. On the other hand, people who live in a family home or are accompanied are more likely to have a sedentary lifestyle and are less physically active. It was concluded that people living alone have a worse healthy eating index than those living with company, which seems to indicate that nutritional interventions should pay attention to people living alone as a variable to be taken into account in future analyses.