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.