Vegetarian diets in first year university students.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION There has been an increase in the popularity of vegetarian diets, especially among adolescents and young adults. These diets seem to be healthy and balanced, but the recommendations are contro versial regarding potential nutritional deficits. OBJECTIVE To identify the frequency and types of ve getarian diet used, their motivation, and sources of information. PATIENTS AND METHOD Cross-sec tional analytical study in freshmen students from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC). Through an online survey, we collected demographic information and diet characterization of those who considered themselves as vegetarians. Variables were analyzed using IDM SPSS Statistics® soft ware and in Excel® spreadsheet in a quantitative way. RESULTS 152 students answered the survey (15.2% of the sample) and, out of these, 49.4% were vegetarian. 32.4% started this eating pattern bet ween the ages 12 and 18 and among their most frequent motivations were environmentalists (91.9%) and animalists (72.9%). 52.9% of vegetarians take vitamin B 12 supplementation but only 15.9% reported having this deficiency. 75.7% obtain information related to vegetarian diets through digital media. CONCLUSION In the surveys answered, we found a high percentage of vegetarian students, the refore, health professionals need to be trained in this area to assure adequate nutritional education, supplementation if necessary, and follow-up.