Are the eating habits of university students different to the rest of the Spanish population? Food availability, consumption and cost

Abstract

Knowledge of the eating habits of young people is highly relevant to understand the demand for food. The objectives of this paper are to identify and analyze the eating habits of a section of young people in relation to the food habits of the rest of the Spanish population, to evaluate the influence of food prices on eating habits and the relevance of those food products related to the Mediterranean diet. The three food surveys used in this study were the Food Balance Sheet (FBS), designed by the FAO, the Household Budget Survey (HBS), designed by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics and an individual survey given to enrolled students at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. The cross-sectional study which was carried out allowed us to discover the cost of food and the consumption habits of a section of young people. A change in food availability and consumption was identified between 2009 and 2012. The average availability per capita and day for food expenditure was €6.19, while the average consumption in the two surveys was €4. The average food availability was 125.58 g per capita and day with an average price of 0.0022 €/g. The behavior of these university students is different from that of the rest of the population. Fruits, legumes, vegetables and greens are the cheapest groups of food; however, the consumption of these food groups is the lowest whereas meat is one of the more expensive groups and is consumed in greater quantities by students. These results are relevant in order to encourage the dietary habits of young people towards the products included in the Mediterranean diet.

Hábitos saludables en universitarios de ciencias de la salud y de otras ramas de conocimiento: un estudio comparativo

“…Martínez et al 48 estudiaron las preferencias de consumo de alimentos en el comedor de una universidad española y uno de los platos menos elegidos fueron las legumbres con un consumo del 9,8%. Amo et al 49 estudiaron los hábitos nutricionales de la población universitaria en base a la compra de alimentos en el supermercado de la universidad. Los resultados dejaron ver que las legumbres, a pesar de ser más baratas, son de las menos elegidas en la cesta de la compra de los estudiantes y por lo tanto, las menos consumidas.…”

Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables by Low-Income Brazilian Undergraduate Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…The eating habits of young people can inform us about the future demand for food, as well as the possibility of certain diseases increasing. This knowledge is relevant to design nutritional policies on health promotion [ 15 ].…”

Measuring meat consumption with recommendations towards more sustainability

“…Based on a revised estimation procedure, this study determined an average per capita meat consumption of 65 kg for the year 2018, comprising of 35 kg pork, 12 kg beef, and 16 kg poultry. Accordingly, we found an underestimation of total per capita meat consumption by 3.6 kg compared to official statistics (BLE, 2021) and confirmed the deviation of consumption indications based on supply balances and dietary surveys (AMO et al, 2016;THAR et al, 2020). The updated estimate presented considered various marketing channels differentiated by meat types and the corresponding specific loss and waste assumptions.…”

“…Consequently, they cannot serve as a basis for evaluating targeted demand-sided measures to curb meat consumption and aiming to reduce health risks of individual consumer groups. In the course of national monitoring, regularly conducted individual or household nutrition surveys, which comprise at-home and out-of-home meat consumption, should be used in a complementary way together with food balance data to comprehensively address nutritional issues (RopitiouEs et al, 2007;Amo et al, 2016).…”

“…The NVS II refers to prepared meat quantities including cooking losses in the course of a demand-side approach (STRAßBURG et al, 2019), which partly explains the discrepancy with the supply-side estimates. Mismatches between consumption indicators based on "food balance sheet statistics" or dietary surveys have been reported in various studies (e.g., DOWLER and SEO, 1985; BARRETT, 2010; Yu and ABLER, 2014; Amo et al, 2016;THAR et al, 2020). However, results with such high inconsistency raise questions about the accuracy of the application of the 30-year-old set of coefficients in Germany.…”