Consumption of nonnutritive sweeteners and sweetened beverages and healthy lifestyle habits in young adults' population

As one of the habits of a healthy lifestyle is to reduce the fast sugars in our meals, the supply of nonnutritive sweeteners in the food supply has increased by offering sweeter meals without extra calories. The aim of  study was to explore the characteristics of young adults' lifestyle habits and consumption of nonnutritive sweeteners. A cross-sectional population study was carried out on social media including 303 respondents aged 19-30. A voluntary anonymous questionary about their anthropometric data, lifestyle, eating and physical activities habits was conducted. Data was statistically analyzed by Microsoft Excel 2010, SPSS program version 19.0 software for Windows and RStudio IDE 1.3. 21.12 % of respondents were overweight or obesity (BMI>85th perc.). 67.33% of respondents eat less fruits and vegetables than WHO recommended 5 portions of fruits and vegetables per day (Normal weight =64.32%, Overweight= 75%) 27.7% of respondents add extra sugar to tea or coffee, only 3.3% of respondents add nonnutritive sweeteners in daily use. 12.5% of respondents use natural sweetener stevia. 51.20 % of respondents drink at least 250ml of sweetened beverages per day (men more than women p = 0.00187). Overweight adults drink more sweetened beverages than those with normal weight (p = 0.0194). Most popular sweetened beverage is fruit juice (40% drink once per month, men>women, p=0.02), but the least popular is Coca Cola Zero (70.3% never drink p=0.0132). Overweight people drink more Coca Cola Zero than adults with normal weight (p=0.009). 36.9% of adults do physical activities at the level that WHO recommends for prevention of noncommunicable diseases. Men are more physical active than women p=0.03. Young adults choose more sugar sweetened meals than nonnutritive sweetened. Being overweight correlates with the consumption of nonnutritive sweeteners, the consumption of fruits and vegetables as well as the level of physical activities.