College students constitute a significant proportion of the young adult population in Norway. They are in their reproductive years, which is of interest regarding diet and preconception health. Our objective was to assess young college students’ diet and nutrient intake in relation to national dietary recommendations and assess the probability of inadequate micronutrient intake for both genders using the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, and also to evaluate its consequences on preconception health and create a groundwork for future interventions on this group. At the University of Agder (UiA), we enrolled 622 students aged 18–40 years for a cross-sectional study of student's diet, StudentKost. The students completed a food frequency questionnaire, including questions of supplement use, over the past 4 weeks. Intake of fruits, vegetables, oily fish, and whole grain was lower than recommended, as were mean intake of folate, iron, and iodine. Our main findings are that students have a somewhat suboptimal diet compared to the Norwegian dietary guidelines. Male students had generally lower diet quality than females. Compared to the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR), we also saw a relatively high probability of inadequate intake of several micronutrients and a very high probability for some micronutrients in a significant portion of the sample. Public health effort should be directed towards improving students and young adults’ diet in general, and interventions towards improving preconception health should be explored. The low participation rate limits the generalizability of our findings. Our findings encourage further investigation into young adults’ diet.

IntroductionThe importance of preconception health for lifelong physical and mental health in the next generation has gained increasing recognition in recent years. Preconception paternal and maternal risk factors such as obesity and inadequate diet affect the metabolic and cardiovascular health of their offspring later in life. This highlights the importance of diet and dietary behaviour in the years before parenthood. In our project, PREPARED, we will evaluate the effectiveness of a digital intervention targeting young adults. Our primary aim is to improve participants’ preconception diet, and our secondary aim is to improve preconception quality of life and maternal and child perinatal outcomes.Methods and analysisWe plan to recruit 7000 men and women individually, aged 20–35 years without children, to be randomised to an intervention or a control group. The intervention group will receive access to a digital resource for 6 months promoting a healthy diet for their health now, later in life and for the next generation. Follow-up is up to 20 years or until they have their first child. To evaluate intervention effects, we will collect dietary data (2×24-hour dietary recalls and a screener). For those participants for which birth ensues, we will link study data with data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway on maternal and child perinatal outcomes.Ethics and disseminationThe study is approved by the Regional Ethics Committee, the Norwegian Data Protection Service and our Faculty Ethical Committee (REC: 78104, NSD: 907212, FEC 20/10119). Participation is voluntary and all participants will provide informed consent. Participants can withdraw their consent without giving any reason. Findings will be communicated to the public through a project website and social media, and to professionals through conferences and peer-reviewed papers.Trial registration numberISRCTN44294662.

Objective: Excessive alcohol consumption during reproductive years may impact the integrity of developing eggs and sperm, potentially affecting the life-long health of future children. Inadequate diets could aggravate these preconception effects of alcohol. The aim of the present study was to assess the prevalence of excessive alcohol consumption and explore whether weekly alcohol intake is associated with energy and nutrient intake and adequacy of micronutrient intake among students. Design: Cross-sectional survey using a validated and reproducibility-tested food frequency questionnaire Setting: University of Agder, Norway, in 2018 Participants: 622 students (71% female) Results: More than 80% reported having consumed alcoholic beverages the past four weeks. One-third of men and 13% of women exceeded the upper recommended limit of 14 UK alcohol units per week. An inverse association between increasing alcohol intake and energy-adjusted micronutrient intake was evident for thiamine, phosphate, iron, zinc and selenium in men, and for vitamin A, β-carotene, vitamin E and C, thiamine, vitamin B6, folate, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc and copper in women. A substantial proportion had vitamin D, folate, iron and iodine intakes below average requirement regardless of alcohol consumption level. The combination of prevalent alcohol use, decreasing micronutrient density of diet across alcohol consumption level, and a high probability of micronutrient inadequacy indicate reason for concern in a preconception public health perspective. Conclusions: Our findings call for investigations into young adults’ knowledge, reflections and beliefs regarding diet and alcohol use to understand how these behaviours could be improved ahead of parenthood.