Joint assessment of PA and dietary behaviors revealed heterogeneity beyond average sex differences: discordant PA-dietary configurations differed by sex (though sensitive to reference cutoffs), and discordance and multivariate extremeness represented distinct aspects of behavioral heterogeneity.
Robust Mahalanobis distance identified 11.7% of university students as having extreme multivariate PA-dietary configurations.
Extreme multivariate configurations were more frequent among men than women.
Bayesian finite-mixture modelling yielded a converged, exploratory two-profile solution differentiated primarily by dietary behaviors.
The more favorable dietary profile was far more common among women than men.
Discordant PA-dietary configurations occurred in about half of the sample and were more frequent among women.
Sex-specific patterns of discordance differed in direction: women predominantly combined lower PA with more favorable diet, while men more often combined higher PA with less favorable diet.
Discordance was not associated with multivariate extremeness.
The study concludes that person-centered assessment of lifestyle behaviors reveals heterogeneity hidden by average associations and may inform targeted health promotion.
This study looked at how physical activity and eating habits fit together in 418 university students, rather than looking at each behavior or at group averages alone. The researcher used statistical methods to find students whose combination of activity and diet was unusual, and to find common patterns of behavior in the group. About 1 in 8 students (11.7%) had an unusual combination of activity and diet, and this was more common in men (15.1%) than women (8.7%). Two broad profiles emerged, mostly separated by diet quality. The more favorable diet profile was much more common among women (54.8%) than men (17.6%). About half of all students had a mismatch between activity and diet, such as being active but eating less healthily, or less active but eating more healthily. Women more often showed lower activity with healthier diets, while men more often showed higher activity with less healthy diets. Mismatch was not related to having an unusual overall combination. This research suggests that looking at activity and diet together can reveal patterns that averages hide, and that health-promotion efforts might benefit from targeting different combinations of behaviors. The findings come from a single cross-sectional sample of university students, the profile analysis was exploratory, and the share of students classed as mismatched depended on the cutoffs used, so the results should be interpreted cautiously.
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Upload Your LabsDomaradzki J. (2026). Beyond Average Sex Differences: A Bayesian Analysis of Extreme and Discordant Physical Activity-Dietary Behavioral Profiles in University Students.. Nutrients. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu18203379