Gender Differences in the Mediterranean Diet and Body Mass Index (BMI) in High School Students

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This research was conducted on a sample of 200 respondents (N = 129 males and N = 71 females) aged 17–18 years, divided into four groups: 17-year-old males (N = 66), 18-year-old males (N = 63), 17-year-old females (N = 44), and 18-year-old females (N = 27). Four variables were applied in the research: height, weight, body mass index, and KIDMED index, calculated on the basis of a 16-question questionnaire on Mediterranean diet. So, if the KIDMED index has a value of ≤ 3, it is considered a very low value, which shows that the Mediterranean diet has been incorporated scarcely. The optimal values of the KIDMED index are 4–7, and if the value reaches ≥ 8, it is considered high. BMI (body mass index) is a variable extracted from the height and weight; in this case, it was calculated separately for each student and, according to its values, the students were divided into ones with normal weight, overweight, or obese. The Mediterranean diet index had the lowest value in male students aged 17 years (KIDMED = 7,85), which was close to the high values, but there was no statistically significant difference between the four groups of students included in the research, because they had similar values (KIDMED above 8,00). There was no statistically significant difference in the BMI between the groups, probably because all of them had normal weight and a similar BMI (20–22).

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