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Introduction: Nutrition greatly affects health, and therefore it is important to identify the factors determining the choice and composition of the diet. These include food preferences, liking. The aim of the study was to determine whether food preferences differ between both sexes, and how much they are reflected in the consumption. Methods: Both food preferences and consumption frequency for 56 foods and beverages were investigated by questionnaire examination in a sample of 1665 adolescents aged 15 years in Brno district. The differences between the sexes were subsequently analysed. Results: Food preferences differ significantly between the sexes and the preferences of the girls can be described as significantly healthier. From the top-ten list of the most preferred food, 6 items are consistent with healthy diet in girls, while only 2 items in boys. Girls significantly more positively perceive raw vegetable, cereal products and fresh fruit, and, conversely, they perceive more negatively lard, hamburger, processed meats, read meat, offal and carbonated soft drinks. Gender differences in the preferences were statistically significant at 48 % of items. As for consumption, the gender differences are much smaller that of preferences. The top-ten of the most consumed items are identical for both sexes entirely; they differ only by the order. Also among the least consumed items there is a good concordance between sexes, 8 items from 10 are the same. From the top-ten of the most preferred items, only 1 item (fresh fruit) is among the top-ten of the most consumed foods in boys, and 3 items (fruit, raw vegetables, cheese) in girls. Conclusion: In adolescents, we found significant gender differences in food preferences, when the preferences of girls were much closer to healthy diet. However, the preferences are not reflected very much in consumption. The consumption differs singnificantly from preferences in the way that consumption is much closer to healthy diet. Unlike the preferences, the gender differences in consumption are only very small. The results show that the food choice in both sexes is very modifiable by external factors, which can suppress even the sexual differences in food preferences.
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