The Relationship between Mediterranean Diet and Body Composition in Exercising Women

Previous studies reveal that diet and exercise show a decrease of weight, body fat, fat mass, and other factors that add into one’s healthy body composition. Sedentary individuals with unhealthy eating habits have an increased risk of life-threatening diseases. Increasing amounts of body fat is destructive to an individual’s well-being. This secondary research study was conducted in order to determine the relationship between the Mediterranean Diet (MD) and body fat and fat mass. If a diet abundance in whole carbohydrates and low amounts of healthy fats lowered the volunteer women’s body fat or fat mass over a 12 week period of time, it would combat the risk of detrimental diseases caused by an overabundance of adipose tissue. Twenty-four women (N=24; age 23.83.7; weight 71.911.9) were analyzed in this experimental group bivariate correlation while completing 12 weeks of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and MD. HIIT consisted of women who were randomly assigned to an intervention group completed 20 minutes of exercise (8-second sprint, 12-second recovery) on a manual cycle ergometer, 828E (Monark, Sweden), three times a week for 12 weeks. Participants’ Mediterranean eating habits were analyzed using dietary analysis software (Foodworks 2007, version 5.00; Xyris Software), based on their 3-day diet diary following 12 weeks of HIIT and MD. To gauge adherence to the MD, the researchers used a Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS) that provided adherence scores of 0-9 (0 being not adherent, and 9 being optimal/total adherence). A Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) was used to determine pre and post-intervention levels of body fat and fat mass; tests were completed by a professional technician blinded to the two different groups. A Pearson Correlation test (SPSS v. 25 P-value of

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