Conclussions

From the survey and the interviews it seems that students do want to eat healthy but do not always take the necessary steps to do so, such as eating breakfast or three meals a day. Also some of their ideas of what constitutes a well-balanced meal may be outdated according to when the last time and place they learned about nutrition with some using the old version of the food pyramid and others following the my plate model. The survey did not adequately show what students felt was a problem for eating breakfast or three meals a day but from the interviews it can be seen that some students may feel that it takes a lot of time. This time students may feel could be used for other things such as school, activities, sleep, etc. Students may also feel that eating three meals or breakfast is not important and therefore could snack or skip meals. It did appear that many students preferred to only spend thirty minutes or less on preparing and eating meals, although many have their own meals prepared for them and this could help to lower the amount of time taken.

            Many students seemed to understand what was important to have a healthy meal and they do think about making healthy decisions when choosing what to eat. More should be researched to see what exactly affects most students in making their decisions and how often they think about eating healthy. Students may know the basic information on what is better to eat but they may not always use this knowledge. There are also some ideas about a mismatch between our modern environment and our earlier environments that could be useful in helping students eat healthier. Such as realizing that in our modern environment we transport our foods which led to developments in food to make them transport easier. This means some food has fewer nutrients. By knowing facts like these, students can also look to see if the food is produced locally or not and realize they may have to eat a little more in order to regain those lost nutrients. Another mismatch is that as hunter and gatherers food was important to find and it was seen as a priority. Now that eating healthy has become less of a priority it seems like students take whatever is easiest and fast and cheap which can lead to bad eating habits which can cause health conditions later in life.

            There are some ways to help make sure students are thinking about eating healthy and taking the time to prepare and eat healthy meals. A study by Kavita H. Poddar, et al. attempted to help improve dairy intake of students through emails and based on Social Cognitive Theory. They focused on Social support (including family and friends in emails to provide information to them), self-efficacy (ways to help students have more dairy in diet through suggestions and recipes), outcome expectations (listing the benefits of dairy) and self-regulation (behavior checklists and weekly quizzes). This all helped contribute to a significant increase in dairy intake. This was designed as an eight-week online class. A similar system could be set up in order to help students think more about eating healthy meals, having people hold them accountable and teaching themselves how to make smart choices. Many students know what makes a healthy meal but they do not always hold themselves accountable and this system could help them to do that. (Poddar 2012)

Another study Kelly et. al. looked at various methods in order to help college students make healthier choices. They noted that no one study was sufficient enough to yield lasting results as some studies showed small improvements immediately after interventions, but often long term showed that students had stopped eating healthy. Another problem was interventions were not set up so that other factors were made obsolete. What was found to be effective was education and self-regulation (such as setting goals). Another possible solution is drawing attention to eating healthy in areas where students eat (Kelly 2013). This could mean putting up posters in dining halls that promotes eating a variety of food, and the right portions of food. Dining halls may also want to feature an example of a healthy meal, using the foods that are provided for that meal. The University dining halls do provide nutrition facts above dishes that are served but this may seem tedious to students who view food as a second priority. Having more visuals that can be quickly looked at may help students to remember to control what they eat. Dining halls would be especially important to students as almost every student has to eat in one for a year and could help start forming the right habits before they completely lose that small step of food already prepared and having options to having options a student has to prepare herself. Then the above email interventions could be used to supplement these eating habits for those who do not live in dorms.

Students should start making sure their eating habits are good eating habits at this age in order to have a lifetime of healthy eating. This can help reduce the risk of potential health disasters later in life and will keep people living a healthy lifestyle. It is important to make students understand that eating healthy is a necessity and that just eating any food is enough. Students need to be aware of the importance of food and start to make eating well a priority.

Sources:

Kelly, N. R., Mazzeo, S. E., & Bean, M. K. (2013). Systematic Review of Dietary Interventions With College Students: Directions for Future Research and Practice. Journal Of Nutrition Education & Behavior, 45(4), 304-313.

Poddar, K. H., Hosig, K. W., Anderson-Bill, E. S., Nickols-Richardson, S. M., & Duncan, S. E. (2012). Dairy Intake and Related Self-Regulation Improved in College Students Using Online Nutrition Education. Journal Of The Academy Of Nutrition & Dietetics,112(12), 1976-1986.

Interview #2

The second student I interviewed lived in the dorms and had some differences in her eating habits. When asked how she defined a well-balanced meal, she stated there should be a balance of good food choices of different varieties and categories and giving yourself enough to eat. She mentioned that portion control was also very important. To her people should be eating all healthy meals 4-5 days in a week and they should be able to have cheat days or a large meal when going out with others. Her personal eating habits include eating at least one healthy meal every day, but only two or three days out of the week does she eat al healthy meals. She notes that by living in the dorms and having a wide variety available to her makes it easier to choose healthy foods. She believes that it is important to prepare and eat meals that are healthy because it helps with your lifestyle choices and that these are positive habits that a person should have. This fits with Brown’s notion that “habits established at this time can affect both their current health and their risk for developing chronic diseases in the future” (Brown 2013). It is important for students to start thinking about eating healthy and learning to make healthy choices in order to help them make similar choices later in life and have healthy eating habits.

This student noted that living in the dorms greatly helped to eat healthier meals as they had more access to healthier and better quality food. She saw the greatest challenges, in general, to eating health as time for preparation, price with better quality and healthier choices often being more expensive and preferences such as not feeling like eating healthy. The first two are mainly challenges for people who don’t live in dorms since foods are bought and prepared for them. All students would have trouble making sure they choose to eat healthy instead of eating whatever they want to eat. The majority of the dining halls are set up buffet style so students get to choose what and how much food they want. Students can choose to make healthy choices without anyone telling them what they should get.

Another similarity this student shared with others was that school and activities could make it so less time is given to meals. This student has both student teaching and class in one day with classes in the evening, during dinner time. She says that sometimes she does not pack dinner and will either skip dinner or eat later. She says on average she skips meals at least three times a week. Even though this student chooses to try and eat healthy and maintain a healthy lifestyle, there are still times where she skips meals because she sees other things as being more important, or may have to compromise how healthy a meal is due to the time she has to prepare and eat food. Making a nutritional meal is still not the most important aspect in this student’s life and other things can become a priority.

This student also feels she is pretty knowledgeable about what is healthy and part of a well-balanced meal. She says she can read nutrition labels well and knows what foods give you what nutrients and understand calorie intake, but she doesn’t necessarily follow the standards. She says this is due to reasons listed above, by putting other things as a priority and by just eating what she wants sometimes instead of the healthy choices. Once again it seems education is not the greatest obstacle to eating healthy but rather the challenge is remembering to eat healthy and to take the time to eat well. There are also advantages for living in a dorm versus a house as there is little need to take time to prepare food which allows for more time to make healthy decisions.

Sources:

Brown, L., Larsen, K. J., Nyland, N. K., & Eggett, D. L. (2013). Eating Competence of College Students in an Introductory Nutrition Course. Journal Of Nutrition Education & Behavior, 45(3), 269-273.

Interview #1

The first student lived in a house and had to prepare most of her own meals. I asked her to describe what she felt was a healthy or well-balanced meal. She stated that the Food Plate is what should be followed which contains lots of vegetables, fruit, and carbs. She also stated that she believed most meals should be healthy but it is okay to have a meal where you splurge and so not eat healthy. When asked if she thought preparing and eating healthy meals is important she described how it is important but it is hard to do. She said for one thing she doesn't always like to make sure she has enough of each food group each meal and that while in college it is hard to find time to make healthy balanced meals.

Timing seems to be an important problem for eating well. When asked how often she eats a well-balanced meal based on her definition, she stated she believes only about once a month is how often she eats a well-balanced meal. When asked why she thought this was, she stated that she does not take the time to put together a healthy meal. One of the challenges she identified to eating meals was also that it requires time to make the meals and put it all together and that other things were seen as a more important priority. This seems to be similar to the culture of food in America. We have fast food restaurants, easy and fast TV dinners and working through lunch so that people can get more work done. People do not always take the time to sit and relax and eat or take the time to prepare healthy meals. While this is not always a daily occurrence, there are students who do not see eating healthy as a priority but rather something to be done if there is time to do so.

When asked what kind of activities might affect eating habits and make it so she does not eat healthy meals, she identified school and nighttime meetings being the biggest activities that can affect her eating patterns. She noted that for meetings she would have to push back diner which could lead to her eating smaller meals. She did not skip meals in order to go to these activities but it could affect the portions of her meals and also created less time for her to make meals. The amount of time and having other things as a priority was mostly the challenge to eat well for this student. She felt that she knew enough about nutrition to know what was healthy and what the right proportions should be, and knew how food affects the body. Education was not the main problem although she did admit that she did not know enough to greatly diversify the types of food she ate in order to have a healthy meal. Most of her healthy meals would be very similar. When asked what helped to motivate her eating decisions she said that she tried to eat healthy, and to eat to control her weight but what often wins out is eating things that she loves. This can sometimes mean healthy foods but also the meals may not be well-balanced.

For this student, taking the time out her busy schedule is often a problem in trying to eat healthy. While some more education could be used in order to help her diversify her healthy eating choices, the greatest challenge she sees is finding time to prepare these meals and actively making sure she has the right proportions of different food groups. 

Survey Results

A survey was given to the students at the University of Illinois in order to see how students think about nutrition and how they are eating. It was completed over two weeks with 29 people responding to the survey. They were all undergraduate students with a wide variety of majors. The first 5 questions asked about the student’s specific eating habits, including how much time they allocate to meals, how often they eat breakfast, how many meals they eat a day, how often they snack and how often they eat out. The second set of questions included what they thought a well-balanced meal was and what their education was like concerning nutrition and what motivates their food decisions. The third section consisted of demographic questions.

            All of the students that took the survey were undergraduates at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Seven were male and twenty two were female. Twenty eight people identified as white, one person as Asian and two as Asian and white. All but one person identified their country of origin as the United States and were all at least second generation. This means the majority of the participants grew up in American culture and has had American influences on the importance of food and nutrition. The other person was from first generation from Poland. There was a mixture of ethnicities that were identified with including Mexican, Italian, German, Lithuanian, Korean, Japanese-American, Polish, Swedish and Austrian. It is possible that this heritage could have some influence on what people ate and how they thought about food. The majority of the students lived in University Housing, Private Housing or Greek Houses, which usually provides meals for students.

            Students eating habits were different and had some variety in their answers. 15 students (52%) said they only ate 2 meals a day, 13 students (45%) said they ate 3 meals and one student (3%) said they ate 4 or more meals a day. Breakfast was only eaten everyday by 9 students, a few times a week by 8 students, a few times a month by 8 students and never by four students. This shows how students may not make it a priority in order to eat three meals a day and to eat breakfast, which is an important meal to have. Some possibly explanations for this is that students’ schedules allow for them to wake up later so they may not eat breakfast and/or skip a meal, they may only wake up to get ready to go to class and not set aside time for breakfast or they just do not feel like breakfast or eating three meals are a priority.  Students also say they snack (27 saying they do so 4 times or less daily) which they may consider makes up for the missed meal and satisfies how hungry they are. Another insight into how students may view the importance of meals is how long they typically take to prepare and eat one meal. 16 students (55%) said they took 15 minutes or less, 8 (28%) took 16-30 minutes and only 5 students (17%) took 31-60 minutes. The majority of students took only a little time to eat a meal. This could indicate that meals are not as important to prepare or to take the time to eat and socialize (which is a component of eating competence mentioned in the first blog post). It seems some college students don’t always value the meal they eat and the possibility of socializing with others.

            When looking at how often students talk about nutrition in high school courses most chose not often (24 students) or never (1 student) and this trend is the same in college level courses (15 said not often while 11 students said never). Students do not receive much formal education on what constitutes a healthy eating lifestyle. It is possible to get this information from elsewhere such as newspapers, movies, books or television programs, but students would have to actively seek it out. Answers on what the student defines as a well-balanced meal all varied but many had several different food groups and agreed their needed to be a variety of food. Some listed the food pyramid, or the my plate as what was appropriate for a well-balanced meal. This shows that people have learned or remember what a healthy meal is at different times/locations since the food pyramid is being replaced by the my plate. Students often described it as having grains, fruits and vegetables, protein, necessary nutrients and that these are all in the right proportions, such as more vegetables/fruit than protein. It seems that students generally had a good idea of what is important to have a well-balanced meal, even though they had little education on it. There were a few that chose not to answer the question, wrote very little, or wrote that there needed to be an entrée and dessert, not giving many specifics. Students also wrote what motivated their food decisions with 23 students stating things they love, 19 students saying they wanted to eat healthy and 13 students saying they wanted to control their body weight (students could choose as many as applied to them). It seems that students do think about eating healthy but also chose what they love, which can be healthy. Some students did note that they ate what was being served in the dining halls and whatever was fast and easy to make. This could affect the nutritional value of what students are eating and if they are eating well-balanced meals.

After the survey I decided to interview a couple of people in order to know more about their eating decisions. 

Nutrition at the University of Illinois

Eating well is very important to having a healthy lifestyle. Knowing what is nutritious is and part of a well-balanced meal is important and many people seem to believe this is important. There have been many campaigns to make people want to eat well, such as the schools promoting more healthy meals and even commercials talking about food products being a part of a well-balanced diet. Are people taking these campaigns seriously and making sure to eat healthy? I looked into what has been found for college students, since some of them prepare their own meals while others have more options but still get to choose what they want to eat.

In research done by Brown, et. al. they defined eating competence as “eating based on the ‘body’s natural processes: hunger and drive to survive, appetite and the need for pleasure, the social reward of sharing food and the tendency to maintain preferred and stable body weight.” (Brown 2013). The eating competency does not only focus on eating well nutritionally but also looks at the social component and body weight as part of eating. The value given to food in American society can often overlook the social aspect and benefit. The study found that the eating competence was low for the majority of the college students and common problems were that students “were challenged to make time to eat, have regular meals, pay attention to food and self while eating, and think about nutrition when making food choices.” (Brown 2013). For me as a college student I felt this was accurate and wanted to see if other students also had similar problems and if there could be any way to help. Eating unhealthy meals is a problem since “poor nutritional intake is associated with a number of negative health outcomes, including weight gain, or the ‘freshman 5,’ chronic diseases and increased health care costs” (Kelly 2013). These are serious problems that students may not realize can be helped by forming good eating habits in college.

I decided to look at the University of Illinois and see if students gave a lot of thought into what they were eating and if they ate healthy. I did this through an anonymous survey that asked questions about student’s eating habits, education on nutrition and what they thought was an important meal. My hypothesis is that students do not think about what a nutritious meal is often and that they often put other activities before preparing and eating healthy meals. I recruited from one of my classes, friends on Facebook and through a volunteer organization I am involved in. The results of this will be discussed more in my next blog post.

Sources:

Brown, L., Larsen, K. J., Nyland, N. K., & Eggett, D. L. (2013). Eating Competence of College Students in an Introductory Nutrition Course. Journal Of Nutrition Education & Behavior, 45(3), 269-273.

Kelly, N. R., Mazzeo, S. E., & Bean, M. K. (2013). Systematic Review of Dietary Interventions With College Students: Directions for Future Research and Practice. Journal Of Nutrition Education & Behavior, 45(4), 304-313.