Mediterranean diet and motivation in sport: A comparative study between university students from Spain and Romania

The aim of this 2018 study was to investigate whether adherence to the Mediterranean diet is connected to motivation in sport. Since habits can vary from nation to nation, this relationship was examined using university students from the 2 countries Romania and Spain. These students had an average age of around 21 and specialized in physical education. Using questionnaires and analysis indices, it was found that students from Spain had a high adherence to the Mediterranean diet and scored highly in task-oriented motivation. This task-oriented motivation trait was associated with low adherence to the Mediterranean diet in the Spanish students. Whereas participants from Romania showed higher scores in ego-oriented motivation, which showed correlations with medium adherence to the Mediterranean diet. This study reveals that Spanish university students may closely follow the Mediterranean diet. Moreover, these findings demonstrate that the motivation of performing better than other athletes may be related to greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet. [NPID: Mediterranean diet, healthy diets, athletes, physical exercise, athletic performance, motivation, motivational climate, university students]

Year: 2018

Reference: Chacón-Cuberos, R., Badicu, G., Zurita-Ortega, F., and Castro-Sánchez, M. (2019). "Mediterranean Diet and Motivation in Sport: A Comparative Study Between University Students from Spain and Romania" Nutrients 11, no. 1: 30. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11010030

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