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Association of total energy intake, diet quality and sleep disorders in university-term female students

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between diet quality and overall sleep quality, sleep duration, and presence of insomnia in the university-term female. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 412 female university students aged between 19 and 24 years in Turkey. The participants’ socio-demographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements, the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), sleep duration and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) and three days food intake records were taken. Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2015 was used to assess diet quality. 64.1% of the participants had poor sleep quality and 28.4% of them were found to have insomnia. Higher PSQI scores were significantly associated with lower intakes of protein (β = − 0.53 ± 0.08% kcal, p < 0.001), but higher intakes of total energy (β = 61.01 ± 8.73 kcal, p < 0.001), total fat (β = 0.29 ± 0.13% kcal, p < 0.05) and saturated fat (β = 0.25 ± 0.08% kcal, p < 0.05). Insomnia partcipants had an avarage of 240.6 kcal higher energy intake, and 1.6% lower energy consumption via proteins compared to those with no insomnia (p < 0.05). Better sleep quality was associated with greater total diet quality as well as higher scores of total vegetables and dairy but higher refined grains, added sugar, saturated fat scores. Higher total scores on the ISI were related to lower scores of total diet quality (β = − 0.66 ± 0.16, p < 0.001), total vegetables (β = − 0.08 ± 0.02, p < 0.001) and dairy (β = − 0.11 ± 0.04, p < 0.05). This current study found that poor sleep quality and the presence of insomnia were associated with lower dietary quality and higher energy intake in females at university period.

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Contributions

NNAÇ and HY designed the study. NNAÇ performed the analysis. NNAÇ, drafted the initial manuscript and HY revised the manuscript; NNAÇ and HY provided important advice for the calculations, reviewed and revised the manuscript making important intellectual contributions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Nazli Nur Aslan Çin.

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Approval of the Ethics Committee was received from Ankara University (No. 13/192) and the Helsinki Declaration principles were followed in the research.

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Aslan Çin, N.N., Yardimci, H. Association of total energy intake, diet quality and sleep disorders in university-term female students. Sleep Biol. Rhythms 19, 313–323 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41105-021-00320-1

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