Dietary and Lifestyle Habits of Adolescents During School Closures Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Pilot Study of the SUGAPAS Project

There is an urgent need for implementing effective lifestyle interventions to minimize negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on schoolchildren`s health (Xiang et al., 2020). One strategy may be the project Supporting Gamified Physical Activities in & out of Schools (SUGAPAS), aiming to design and implement: (1) an exergame that requires gross motor activity, to trigger physical activity (PA) and sport participation of students; (2) a mobile game to support a healthy lifestyle through planning of meals, snacks as well as designing daily and weekly menus; and (3) a mobile game which implements a series of nutritional self-assessments for supporting students’ awareness and knowledge about nutrition and dietary guidelines. This cross-sectional study aims to investigate dietary and lifestyle habits of adolescents in a pilot sample of European countries involved in the SUGAPAS project.

Six-hundred and twenty adolescents (of them girls n=331), within the age range of 12-17 years, from Lithuania (n=215), Greece (n=127), Cyprus (n=159) and Spain (n=119), volunteered and anonymously participated in this study. Due to the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease and implemented school closures to prevent further spread of infection in the communities, the survey was conducted online. In order to evaluate dietary and lifestyle patterns of the respondents, a three-part questionnaire was used. The first part evaluated nutritional behavior using the KIDMED Index to measure the adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MD). The second part roughly estimated the frequency and duration of involvement in PA/sports participation in a typical week. Finally, the participants indicated the weekly frequency of participation in 27 different leisure management activities.

When comparing adolescents’ dietary habits, it was revealed that better dietary choices are characteristic to youth from Cyprus and Spain rather than their counterparts from Lithuania and Greece (medium vs. poor adherence to MD), i.e. the KIDMED Index of 5.08 and 5.13 vs. 1.13 and 1.65, respectively (p0.001). Participants from Cyprus were more actively involved in PA/sports, in comparison with the youth of similar age from Spain and Lithuania (p=0.001). A vast majority of adolescents fail to accomplish the international guidelines of PA for health. Analysis of leisure time management revealed that youth prefer mostly sedentary activities (e.g., social activities such as meetings with friends, social networking, using screens for entertainment, etc.), instead of choosing sports and active recreation.

The lifestyle of schoolchildren during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions has been affected dramatically, causing a substantial decrease in PA and an extensive increase in sedentary activity time. The combination of inactivity and poor nutritional behavior may be a determining factor for weight gain and the cause of other negative health consequences. There is an urgent need for intervention programs to promote active healthy living, and the SUGAPAS project may contribute by offering a challenging tool to youth for educated choices.