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Studies in thou­sands of adults have high­lighted the pro­tec­tive role of the Mediterranean diet on abdom­i­nal obe­sity and a slew of other meta­bolic syn­drome char­ac­ter­is­tics. But, even though evi­dence in adults abounds, the num­ber of stud­ies in ado­les­cents that have exam­ined the same ben­e­fi­cial effects has been dis­ap­point­ingly low.

This gap in sci­en­tific lit­er­a­ture came to fur­ther cover a new Greek study titled ​“Mediterranean Diet Decreases Adolescent Waist Circumference.” The study, which appeared in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, found that increased adher­ence to the Med diet (con­tain­ing increased daily con­sump­tion of olive oil, fruit or fruit juice, pasta or rice and yogurts or cheese) was inversely linked with waist cir­cum­fer­ence, point­ing to a poten­tial of mul­ti­com­po­nent-mul­ti­level school-based inter­ven­tions to tackle ado­les­cent obe­sity.

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of 1,610 ado­les­cents aged 12 – 17 years in 23 pub­lic high schools in three munic­i­pal­i­ties in the Attica region of Greece under­went dietary assess­ment with the use of the Mediterranean Diet Quality Index in chil­dren and ado­les­cents, blood pres­sure assess­ment and screen­ing for gen­eral and abdom­i­nal obe­sity by mea­sur­ing body mass index, waist cir­cum­fer­ence and waist-to-height ratio, at base­line and fol­low­ing a six-month school-based inter­ven­tion.

“After anthro­po­met­ric and nutri­tional assess­ment, par­tic­i­pants under­went a three-com­po­nent edu­ca­tional inter­ven­tion for pro­mo­tion of (a) bal­anced nutri­tion accord­ing to the prin­ci­ples of Mediterranean diet, (b) reg­u­lar phys­i­cal activ­ity, (c) healthy body image and healthy eat­ing behav­iors,” the study’s co-pro­ducer, Flora Bacopoulou, told Olive Oil Times.

Bacopoulou, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor of pedi­atrics and ado­les­cent med­i­cine at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Medicine, explained that later a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach from ado­les­cent med­i­cine health pro­fes­sion­als was used to instill the nec­es­sary con­cepts in the par­tic­i­pat­ing stu­dents, at the same time rein­forc­ing these con­cepts through influ­enc­ing the ​“three lev­els” that, in turn, influ­ence ado­les­cents’ health: par­ents, teach­ers, and school/community health staff.

“Over a period of six months ado­les­cent par­tic­i­pants attended thirty-six edu­ca­tional ses­sions, par­ents par­tic­i­pated in nine ses­sions and teach­ers and health pro­fes­sion­als in two-day work­shops that were orga­nized sep­a­rately for each school, while atten­dees were pro­vided guide­books for ado­les­cent nutri­tion and phys­i­cal activ­ity. A web­site was specif­i­cally designed to sup­port par­tic­i­pants’ edu­ca­tion,” explained the sci­en­tist.

Echoing the results of a pre­vi­ous study in young Spaniards where high adher­ence to Mediterranean diet was also asso­ci­ated with more decreased waist cir­cum­fer­ence, the research estab­lished that increased adher­ence to the dietary pat­tern was inversely linked with waist cir­cum­fer­ence in both gen­ders.

“I vehe­mently believe that Mediterranean diet is the best diet pos­si­ble for ado­les­cents and this is some­thing already proved for adults on a global level,” said Bacopoulou.

“For ado­les­cent health, the sci­en­tific lit­er­a­ture is scarce, let alone the fact that Med diet is con­stantly being aban­doned by young peo­ple. Schools are des­ig­nated places for pro­mot­ing inter­ven­tion in order to pre­vent child­hood and ado­les­cent obe­sity,” she explained.

“In our study we placed heavy empha­sis on nutri­tional edu­ca­tion, phys­i­cal activ­ity and body image aware­ness, tar­get­ing all dif­fer­ent lev­els of influ­ence on ado­les­cent health, their par­ents, teach­ers, and school/community health staff. Such inter­ven­tions using a sys­tems-level approach, as well as inter­ac­tions and rela­tion­ships between lev­els, show the great­est impact for pri­mary pre­ven­tion.”

• Mediterranean diet decreases ado­les­cent waist cir­cum­fer­ence


• Journal of the American College of Cardiology