a little<\/abbr>) Diet Score. DASH diet scores were estimated at each follow-up and ranged from 0 to 80, with higher scores reflecting better diet quality.<\/p>\nDiscretionary food intake was defined as the proportion of energy obtained from discretionary foods and beverages. Discretionary foods and beverages were those that did not fit into the five main food groups according to the Australian Dietary Guidelines. Participants self-reported their living arrangements at years 20, 22, and 27, while their primary caregivers reported them at years 14 and 17.<\/p>\n
Living arrangements included living with parents, partner, friends, or alone. The age at which participants first reported a living arrangement other than living with their parents was considered to be the age at which they moved out of the parental home.<\/p>\n
Participants could still move between non-parental living arrangements over time, but for the main analyses, leaving the first parental home was used as the transition point. Multi-level regression models were used to examine diet quality trajectories and interactions with living arrangements and after leaving the parental home.<\/p>\n
Findings regarding quality of diet and living arrangements<\/h2>\n
The analytic sample included 1,135 participants. Almost all participants were living with their parents at 14- and 17-year follow-up. At ages 20 and 22, most participants continued to live in their parents’ home after starting employment; Furthermore, approximately half the sample began higher education, and most continued to live with parents.<\/p>\n
By the 27-year follow-up, 29% of participants were still living in their parents’ home, while 63% had left the parental home by that follow-up. Of the total sample of 27 years, 46% were living with a partner. A U-shaped trajectory was observed for DASH diet scores, with the lowest scores around age 20.<\/p>\n
DASH diet scores dropped by almost one point after leaving the parental home. In contrast, discretionary food intake increased by about 1% after parents moved out of the home.<\/p>\n
People who lived with a partner, with friends, or alone saw an initial decline in their DASH diet scores compared with those who lived in the parent home, with the largest declines seen in those living with a partner.<\/p>\n
Leaving the parental home and living alone initially reduced discretionary food intake by about 0.65%, while living with friends or a partner after leaving home increased it by about 1%. The interaction effect of time since leaving parental home did not differ significantly by living arrangement.<\/p>\n
Conclusion on dietary changes after leaving home<\/h2>\n
In summary, moving out of the parental home was associated with decreased DASH dietary scores; In this change, discretionary food intake increased by about 1%. Those who moved in with a partner had the greatest reduction in their diet scores, while those who moved in alone or with friends had less reduction. Specifically, lower DASH diet scores associated with leaving home persisted over time, whereas differences in discretionary food intake diminished over time.<\/p>\n
Overall, these results provide valuable insight into the factors that contribute to changes in diet quality from adolescence to early adulthood. A better understanding of the factors that shape dietary behavior may lead to the development of more effective public health strategies. However, the study was observational, so the findings show an association rather than evidence that leaving home caused a change in diet.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the exact time of leaving home was estimated from follow-up reports rather than directly observed, dietary intake was self-reported, and some living-arrangement subgroups were small. <\/p>\n
The authors also noted that the lack of follow-up between ages 22 and 27 limited the accuracy of transition timing, especially because many participants left the parental home during that interval.<\/p>\n
Future studies should explore additional factors during this life stage, such as motivations for food choices, changes in income, time constraints, gender differences, and interactions with age.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moving out of the parents’ home can mean more than just changing where young adults live; It may also mark a permanent shift toward poor diet quality during one of the earliest stages of life. key takeaways decline in diet quality Leaving the parental home led to a slight decline in overall diet quality, with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[6622,2331,1396,841,1135,1052,8267,1005,8266,3498],"class_list":["post-17096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-meditation","tag-adults","tag-australian","tag-diet","tag-finds","tag-home","tag-leaving","tag-quality","tag-study","tag-worsen","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17098,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17096\/revisions\/17098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}