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Findings suggest that obesity prevention interventions for college students should include an education component to emphasize the importance of overall sleep quality and improving eating competence.

A college campus provides a food environment with an array of shopping venues, most of which are not consistent with dietary recommendations for obesity prevention. The limited quality of healthy food in on-campus and convenience stores and the exacerbated deficiencies for small postsecondary institutions provide evidence to support environmental and policy initiatives to improve the quality of campus food store environments.

The ease of walking and biking on a campus was related to college students' walking behavior and their BMI. Students' PA behavioral intentions were associated with moderate PA and lower BMI. These results provide evidence to focus on policies and structural supports for walkable/bikeable environments to supplement and enhance interventions encouraging individual behavior change for PA and weight management.

This study describes sleep behaviors of U.S. college students (N = 1,252; 18-24 years old; 59% female) and examines associations of sleep duration with weight-related behaviors. More than one quarter of participants slept < 7 hr/night and had mean Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scores indicating poor sleep quality. There were significant differences for all PSQI scales among sleep duration categories, < 7 hr (n = 344), 7-8 hr (n = 449), ≥ 8 hr (n = 459) sleep/night. Compared to those who slept ≥ 8 hr, those who slept < 8 hr had significantly more negative eating attitudes (2% higher), poorer internal regulation of food (4% lower), and greater binge eating (4% higher) scores. Findings advocate for health care professionals to evaluate sleep behaviors of college students during office visits and promote good sleep behaviors.

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Purpose – Recruiting college students for research studies can be challenging. The purpose of this paper is to describe the lessons learned in the various recruitment strategies used for enrolling college students in a theory-based, tailored, and web-delivered health intervention at 13 US universities. Design/methodology/approach – The community-based participatory research (CBPR) model was used to develop a staged-tailored, web-based, randomized control trial, focussing on eating behavior, physical activity, and stress management. Participant feedback during baseline assessments was used to evaluate recruitment strategies. Findings – Findings from this feedback suggest that traditional recruitment strategies, such as newspaper ads and flyers, may not be the best approach for recruiting college students; instead, web-based efforts proved to be a better recruitment strategy. Research limitations/implications – This project included results from 13 US universities and thus may not be generalizable: more research is needed to determine successful recruitment methods for 18-24 years old college students. Originality/value – This paper lessens the gap regarding successful recruitment strategies for 18-24 years old college students.