Food insecurity, Mediterranean diet adherence, and psychosocial health among university students in Türkiye

ABSTRACT

The aim was to examine the relationship between food insecurity and adherence to the Mediterranean diet, academic achievement, depression, anxiety, and stress among university students. This cross-sectional study was conducted with 2039 university students studying in Türkiye. Sixty-eight point two per cent of the students were food insecure. Food security (FS) scores were negatively associated with adherence to the MD and academic achievement, and positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress scores. A 1-unit increase in FS score resulted in a statistically significant increase of 0.458, 0.468, and 0.400 units in depression, anxiety, and stress scores, respectively, and a significant decrease of 0.140 units in the MD adherence screener score. Food insecurity among university students in Türkiye is very common, and students with food insecurity have low adherence to the MD and low academic achievement and high depression, anxiety, and stress scores. Financial support as well as financial and food literacy provided to students play an important role in managing food insecurity.

KEYWORDS:

• Food security
• Mediterranean diet
• depression
• anxiety
• stress

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all participants who helped us during this project.

Author contributions

KE: conceptualization, data curation, methodology, writing – original draft, writing – review, and editing. FA: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing – original draft, writing – review, and editing. The authors have approved the final version submitted.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.