Perceived Nutrition and Health Concerns: Do They Protect against Unhealthy Dietary Patterns in Polish Adults?

The aim of the study was to explore the associations between perceived health and nutrition concerns, sociodemographic characteristics and unhealthy dietary patterns in a representative group of Polish adults. The data were collected in 2017 through a cross-sectional quantitative survey under the National Health Program 2016-2020. Logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. It was found that higher health concerns decreased the chances of adhering to upper tertiles of "Fast food & alcohol" and "Refined food & sweetened beverages" dietary patterns (DPs), thus displaying less frequent consumption of such foods. No relationship was found between health concerns and adhering to the "Fat food" and "Butter" DPs. Nutrition concerns increased the likelihood of frequent consumption of foods from "Fast food & alcohol" DP. Women were less likely to adhere to unhealthy eating patterns than men, while older people were less likely to often consume fast food, alcohol, or refined food and sweetened beverages. Findings of this study showed that concerns about health or nutrition were differently associated with dietary patterns and consumption of unhealthy foods. These relationships should be considered when developing interventions to address health-related lifestyle changes. However, further research is needed to identify cause-effect relationships between these variables.