Poster Session

Childhood obesity prevalence has been increasing dramatically lately.In Greece, childhood obesity rates are 4-11% and overweight children account for more than one third of children overall.Childhood obesity is a major factor for the onset of other diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, as well as cardiovascular diseases and obesity in adulthood.Low adherence to the Mediterranean diet, a dietary pattern universally acknowledged as an appropriate way of eating, and lack of exercise may contribute to high prevalence of childhood obesity.Aim: To investigate dietary habits of overweight and obese children and to investigate their adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern.Methods: 148 children in total, participated in the study.They were overweight and obese, 3.5-16.5years old.Anthropometric data and dietary habits were recorded with the use of an appropriate questionnaire.KIDMED Index was used for the assessment of the adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern Results: The adherence of overweight and obese children to the Mediterranean diet is shown in the following Table.Adherence to the Mediterranean diet KID MED SCORE range Children following the Mediterranean diet; n (%) Low 0-3 30 (20.3) Partly following 4-7 86 (56.1)Full 8-12 35 (23.6)In addition to that, the investigation of eating habits of the children revealed that 58.8% of them were eating fast food twice a week and 2.7% of them daily.Finally, 59.6% of the children had snacks twice a day.Conclusions: Most of the overweight and obese children that participated in the study did not follow the Mediterranean dietary pattern.Almost 60% of the children were consuming fast food and snacks frequently.P02