DIETARY HABITS OF YOUTH DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THEIR ADHERENCE TO MEDITERRANEAN DIET

People with weakened immune systems are at greater risk for Covid-19 infection. Therefore, it is important for individuals to sustain an adequate and balanced diet throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Particularly, following the Mediterranean diet, which is well known to boost the immune system, may have an effective role in protection against the disease. To this respect, this study aims to determine nutritional knowledge levels and Mediterranean diet quality indexes (KIDMED) of youth as well as the compliance of their dietary patterns with Mediterranean diet amid Covid-19 pandemic. The research data was collected through online questionnaires. A total of 292 volunteers participated in the research. The questionnaire forms consisted of three parts. The first part included questions concerning the demographic information of the participants. The second part contained 20 questions aimed at determining the nutritional knowledge level of the youth participating in the study. Finally, in the third part of the questionnaire, Mediterranean Diet Quality Index (KIDMED) was used and 16 questions were addressed. A statistical difference by sex (male=77.35±13.49, female=80.76±10.10) was observed in nutritional knowledge scores of the participants (t=2.845, p<0.05), while there was no difference between sexes in KIDMED scores (male=5.47±2.37, female=5.70±2.33) (t=0.836, p>0.05). It has been found that the Mediterranean diet quality of the 15.41% of the youth participated in the research is very low (≤3 points), the diet quality of the 62.67% is average/needs improvement (4-7 points), and 21.92% of the participants has optimal level of diet quality (≥8 points). The results of the research indicate that the young people have low quality diets, and there is a correlation between nutritional knowledge level and eating habits.