Food and nutritional profile of high energy density consumers in an adult Mediterranean population

Objective: To test if an adult Mediterranean population consumes different food volumes while spontaneously ingesting diets of different energy density and to estimate which are the food and nutritional profiles of these diets. Design: A cross-sectional study of food consumption. Setting: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus. Subjects: Five hundred and seventy two adult individuals (25-65 y) randomly selected from the population census of Reus. Intervention: 24 hour recall method for 3 non-consecutive days including one holiday. The population was classified into three groups of differing energy densities by simple linear regression analysis. Means were compared by ANOVA. Results: Both sexes consume similar food volumes across the different levels of energy density. High energy density consumers ingest significantly more red meat, olive oil, sweet cereals, cereals and sugars and less reduced fat milk, green vegetables and fruit compared to low energy density consumers. Male and female high energy density consumers show a significantly higher consumption of energy (1686kJ and 2200kJ, respectively) (P < 0.001), a 5.2% (P < 0.001) and 2.3% (P < 0.05) respectively higher energy intake derived from fat and a 1.3% (P < 0.05) and 1.3% (P < 0.05) respectively higher energy intake derived from saturated fatty acids compared to low energy density consumers. Conclusions: Our adult Mediterranean population normally consumes similar food volumes, independently of the energy density ingested. High energy dense diets in our population could represent an important health risk because they are excessively rich in energy, fats and saturated fatty acids.