Changes in physical activity, diet, sleep, and mental well-being when starting university: A qualitative exploration of Australian student experiences

Can an Authentic Assessment Task Improve the Health Behaviours of Undergraduate Students?

“…While these themes often facilitated positive changes, they could also have had negative effects on health behaviours when students encountered adverse internal and external factors. The barriers identified by students were not surprising and aligned with known risk factors for unhealthy behaviours during the transition to tertiary education, such as increased time pressures, financial constraints, and stress [17,18]. These barriers are consistent with other research on Australian university undergraduate health-science students, which identified individual factors (self-efficacy and lack of health knowledge), time constraints, environmental factors, psychological factors, and lack of social support as barriers to implementing healthy behaviours [37].…”

“…However, studies have shown that health-science students are not always more knowledgeable about health behaviours than other students, and their own health behaviours are not ideal [15,16]. The stress of new academic and external demands on undergraduate students can reduce the prioritisation of health-seeking behaviours and negatively affect their health and mental well-being [17]. Commencing tertiary education coincides with more independence for many students; however, typically skills such as self-efficacy and accountability have not yet been developed, leaving them at higher risk of adopting unhealthy behaviours [18].…”

Depression, Anxiety, Stress And Wellbeing Of Young Psychology Students In Pakistan: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

“…Students also struggle with changed eating and sleeping patterns due to continuous assessment practices. They struggle with self-care (Oftedal et al, 2023;Di Benedetto et al, 2019). Since the introduction of modern media, students are also struggling with managing their cognitive load (Pittman &Haley, 2023).…”

“…For a variety of reasons, this age group is exposed to various stressors such as growing insecurity, economic problems, disruption in social fabric, and demographic transition in this segment of the population (Khan et al, 2007). In addition to these stressors, young people enrolled in universities also experience evolving responsibilities, pressure for time management, changed eating and sleeping patterns as well as struggle with self-care (Oftedal et al, 2023;Di Benedetto et al, 2019). Thus, they become more prone to suffering from high levels of stress, depression and anxiety and have become a highly vulnerable population group.…”

Social marketing targeting healthy eating and physical activity in young adult university students: A scoping review

“…It represents a critical period where changes in lifestyle behaviours (e.g., decrease in physical activity (PA) and fruit/vegetable intake) and weight gains are more commonly documented [ 15 ]. Starting university in Australia, Canada, and the US is influenced by several barriers perceived to healthy eating/lifestyle such as unsupportive institutional environment, availability/cost of healthy foods, neglect of PA, easy access to fast food, peer influence on unhealthy eating behaviour/physical inactivity, insufficient sleep, and stress [ [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] ]. Students appeared to maintain those detrimental behavioural patterns such as excessive screen time and physical inactivity during the transition [ 20 , 21 ].…”