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Eating behavior: The influence of age, nutrition knowledge, and Mediterranean diet
This 2020 study aimed to determine the relationship between eating patterns and sociodemographic among Portuguese university students. Student life often involves changes in eating behaviors and dietary patterns due to the new environment, study stress, time management failures, and busy class schedules. These behavioral modifications may play a part in the impairment of cognitive processing, which influences academic performance and can affect career success further down the line. One hundred and sixty-nine students aged between 18 and 50 years took part in this study, completing questionnaires assessing Mediterranean diet adherence eating behavior. Thirty-three students showed restrained eating behavior, while 73 adults presented with external eating behaviors (related to eating according to external stimuli such as presence of food), and 63 showed emotional eating behaviors. Around 62% of the nutrition sciences students demonstrated emotional eating behaviors. Other than this, restrained eating behaviors were generally linked with being older and having higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet. The study concludes that studying nutrition sciences was associated with having emotional eating behavior. Furthermore, older university students and those who adhere more closely to the Mediterranean diet were more likely to have restrained eating behaviors. [NPID: eating behaviors, eating habits, Portugal, Portuguese, students, university, cognition, academic performance, restrained eating, emotional eating, external eating, Mediterranean diet]
Year: 2020
