Exercise training encourages healthy eating in young adults

A 15-week exercise training intervention helps motivate young adults to regulate their food intake and pursue a healthier diet, as shown in a recent study.

The study included 2,680 young adults who underwent 15 weeks of aerobic exercise training. Computerized heart rate monitors were used to record exercise duration, intensity and dose at each session.

Additionally, the participants completed a food frequency questionnaire before and after exercise training (n=2,476 at baseline; n=1,859 at week 15), providing habitual intakes of 102 food items. Seven dietary patterns emerged, as follows: prudent (high frequency intake of fruits, vegetables and low-fat foods; low frequency intake of fried foods, and soft drinks), western (high frequency intake of red and processed meat, fried foods, soft drinks, breads, and pasta dishes), snacking (high frequency intake of cookies, sweets and salty snacks), ethnic (tacos, burritos, tortillas and salsa), meat and dairy alternatives, alcohol, and milk and cereal.

Most dietary pattern scores within each of the seven dietary patterns decreased following exercise training, with a parallel increase in voluntary regulation of food intake.

Specifically, a longer exercise duration correlated with reduced preferences for the western (β, −0.0793) and snacking (β, −0.1280) patterns, while a higher exercise intensity correlated with an increased preference for the prudent pattern (β, 0.0623). Finally, a higher exercise dose was associated a decreased preference for the snacking pattern (β, −0.0023) and an increased preference for the prudent pattern (β, 0.0029).

The present data may be of importance to individuals who feel pressured to improve their diet and physical activity at once, since imposing multiple goals often discourages people to improve their health behaviours within a busy schedule, researchers said.