Impact of the year of graduation on the positioning of nutrition professionals regarding the vegetarian diet Impacto do ano de formacilo no posicionamento dos profissionais de nutricao face a dieta vegetariana

The adoption of a vegetarian diet increased over the years. In Portugal, is estimated that 1.2% of the population follows this food pattern. A cross-sectional study was carried out, including a final sample of 74 nutrition professionals to assess their position concerning the vegetarian diet (VD) according to their year of graduation (YG). The results analyses demonstrated that 23 nutrition professionals graduated between 1980 and 2009; and 51 between 2010 and 2019. There were statistically significant differences regarding the possibility of keeping a VD throughout life, since 81.1% of the participants consider it possible, most of them belonging to the group who graduated after 2009. As for supplements, 13% of the nutrition professionals who graduated until 2009 believe it possible to adhere to a VD without resorting to supplements, however, the percentage increases significantly to 39.2% in nutrition professionals trained after 2009. The percentage of nutrition professionals that approved the adherence of athletes to VD increased statistically in recent years, however, most believe this adherence is only possible with the use of supplements. Adherence to VD has increased over the past few years, however, the opinion of nutrition professionals is not unanimous regarding its safety, effectiveness in weight loss, and use of supplementation.