Association between sleep quality and eating behavior in university students in the contingency for COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has led to taking extreme actions aimed at reducing the spread of the virus by drastically changing the lifestyles of students, and causing negative effects in situations that influence the quality of sleep and eating behavior. The aim was to associate sleep quality and eating behavior in Mexican university students during confinement by SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19). Methodology: Cross-sectional study carried out using a web form, in a sample of 821 students, the quality of sleep was evaluated with the self-application of the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index validated in Spanish and eating behavior with the validated Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Statistical analyzes for the association between sleep quality and eating behavior were determined with chi square, with statistical significance of 5%. OR were calculated by binary logistic regression using SPSS 25.0 software. Results: Alterations in sleep quality were found with association to unhealthy eating behaviors, mainly in the following behaviors;students who eat less than 3 meals a day during the week (OR=0.74;95%CI 0.60,0.92), those who showed liking for alcoholic beverages (OR=1.1;95%CI 1.04,1.18), those who showed liking for the habitual consumption of packaged foods (OR=1.12;95%CI 1.01,1.24), students do not include vegetables or salads in their main meal time during the day with a risk of 1.07 times more of having poor quality of sleep (OR=1.07;95%CI 1.01,1.13) young people do not consume fruits in their main meal of the day (OR=1.05;95%CI 1.02,1.12), compared to good sleepers. Conclusions: Weight loss was mainly mediated by energy restriction, REI was not superior to REC as a therapeutic intervention, since weight loss seems to be mediated by the level of energy restriction and not because it is performed continuously or discontinuous.