Objective: Parental style is an important determinant in shaping children/adolescents' nutritional characteristics. This study aimed to investigate the relationship among parental styles, and adolescents' diet quality and healthy nutrition attitudes.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a simple and stratified random sampling method was applied and 2417 adolescents aged between 14-17 were included in high school. Attitude Scale for Healthy Nutrition (ASHN), Mediterranean Diet Quality Index (KIDMED), and Parenting Style Scale (PSS) were completed through face-to-face interviews. Linear and logistic regression analyses were used to determine the predictive effect of diet quality and nutrition attitude on parenting style.

Results: Authoritative and indulgent parenting styles were found in 23.7% and 24.2% of the adolescents, respectively. The neglectful and authoritarian groups had a lower odds ratio of medium or high adherence to the Mediterranean diet in comparison to the authoritative parenting style (OR[95%CI]=0.43[0.34-0.54] and 0.55[0.42-0.72], respectively). Individuals with the neglectful and authoritarian parental style were less likely to ideal ASHN than those with the authoritative group after the covariate-adjusted model. There were significant effects of information on nutrition (IN) [β(SE)=0.07(0.01)] and positive nutrition (PN) (β(SE)=0.13(0.02)) for strictness/supervision, malnutrition (MP) (β(SE)=0.14(0.01)) and IN (β (SE)=0.08(0.01)) for psychological autonomy (fully covariate-adjusted model), yet the model's explanation coefficient was found to be low (Total R2= 0.048 for strictness/supervision, 0.076 for psychological autonomy).

Conclussion: The results show that adolescents who defined their parents as authoritative and indulgent had enhanced nutritional characteristics. Still, further studies are needed to clarify the effect of parental styles on adolescent nutrition.