Objective:

the objective of this research is to describe food consumption habits and determine which sociodemographic variables, within the group of young university students, are involved in the choice of food.

Methods:

an ad hoc, Anonymous and self-administered questionnaire was applied to 599 students from the University of Alicante, enrolled in the 2018/2019 academic year.

Results:

the results show that university students concentrate their intakes at lunch (90.2%) and dinner (82%). It was also shown that the foods included in the Mediterranean diet are consumed two or three times a week in this population, but in different percentages. The data confirm that those educated in a democratic style consume, in 59%, foods enriched with vitamins and minerals above other family educational styles. Of the students who claimed to consume precooked foods, 51.9% belong to a democratic educational style, 32.3% to permissive, 14.6% to authoritarian and 1.2% to negligent, which confirms the influence of family educational culture in the eating habits of this ade group for this variable.

Conclusions:

it is concluded that the defining guidelines of the Mediterranean diet have lost prominence in this population group, when comparing their results with those od other historical moments. In addition, it is confirmed that the defining guidelines of the Mediterranean diet have been losing prominence along the years.