Predictive associations between lifestyle behaviours and dairy consumption: The IDEFICS study.

AbstractBackground and aim:Physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviours (SB) are relatedto obesity and cardiometabolic risk; however, the literature is controversial regarding the effectof dairy consumption on the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. The aim ofthis study was to assess longitudinally the relationship between specific lifestyle behaviours (PAand SB) and dairy consumption in a sample of European children and adolescents.Methods and results:Children from the IDEFICS study were included in the analyses. Two mea-surements, with 2 years'interval, were conducted. A total of 1688 (50.8% boys) children providedinformation regarding diet, measured by a 24-h dietary recall, PA measured by accelerometersand parent-reported sedentary screen time (SST) at both time points. Different combinationsof these behaviours, at each survey and over time, were derived applying specific recommenda-tions. Multilevel ordinal logistic regression and analysis of covariance were used to assess theirassociation with dairy consumption, adjusted for potential confounders. Differences by genderwere found regarding dairy product consumption and also adherence to SB and PA recommen-dations at T0 and T1. Children meeting both lifestyle recommendations, at the two measurementpoints, had higher probability to consume more milk and yogurt and less cheese than the rest ofcombinations.Conclusions:These results suggest that European children with a healthy lifestyle, especiallyregarding PA and SB over time, consumed more milk and yogurt. This study suggests that theprotective effect of specific dairy products found in literature could be partially due to the asso-ciation of their consumption with specific healthy lifestyles.