Eating Disorders in Relationship with Dietary Habits among Pharmacy Students in Romania

Abstract

Changing dietary habits of university students is due to personal, social, educational or religious factors. The relationship between dietary habits and presence of eating disorders among university students is less known in Romania. Material and Methods: Ninety-one pharmacy students (91.21% women) were included in the research. Socio-demographic, anthropometric, medical, and psychological data were collected. Dietary self-declared habits were registered. The analysis of data was done using SPSS, v23. Results: A total of 69.2% of students had normal weight, 64.84% preferred to have lunch, and 23.08% eat during nights. The majority of subjects (95.6%), stated that they eat snacks daily. More than one-third of students keep diets to reduce their weight. Younger students tend to eat more main meals per week, snack more, and eat later after getting up in the morning. Subjects with high body dissatisfaction tended to have fewer main meals (r = −0.265, p = 0.011) and to skip breakfasts (−0.235, p = 0.025) and dinners (r = −0.303, p < 0.001). Pharmacy students that presented higher rate of emotional problems tend to sleep less and skip breakfast. Conclusions: Female pharmacy students had higher mean scores on all subscales than those found among Romanian women. A strong relationship between dietary habits and eating disorders was identified.

Dietary Behaviour Is Associated with Cardiometabolic and Psychological Risk Indicators in Female Hospital Nurses—A Post-Hoc, Cross-Sectional Study

“…We suspect that psychological vulnerability of female nurses resulted in dietary restraint. The negative correlations between energy intake and EDI-3 scores observed in the present study are similar to those of Iorga et al, who showed negative associations between several EDI-3 subscale scores and a tendency to skip meals and restrict energy intake in predominantly (>90%) female pharmacy students [51]. The EDI-3 subscale scores of the current study were also similar to those reported by Iorga et al [51].…”

Food Involvement, Eating Restrictions and Dietary Patterns in Polish Adults: Expected Effects of Their Relationships (LifeStyle Study)

“…This practice may have both positive and negative effects on nutritional status, health, and finally on the quality of life. Eating restrictions may lead to unhealthy dietary habits and eating disorders [4]. On the other hand, present-day diets with a high content of fat, sweet, and energy density often correlate with higher body mass index (BMI) [5][6][7].…”

Body dissatisfaction as a predictor of disordered eating behaviors in undergraduate women: an integrative review

“…For them, disordered eating behaviors have become so common in Western society that restrictive diets, as well as compensatory and purgative practices, are commonly considered "normal" behaviors. This normalization results in the intensification of behaviors harmful to women's health (Iorga et al, 2018;Batista et al, 2015;Macneill et al, 2017;Talwar, 2012;Yahia et al, 2011).…”

“…This is corroborated by all the studies included in this review that were conducted with the university population of both genders (57.1%; n=12). These research presented unanimous results regarding the higher prevalence of body dissatisfaction and higher occurrence of risky eating behaviors in women (Alba et al, 2012;Batista et al, 2015;Escolar-Llamazares et al, 2017;González-Carrascosa et al, 2014;Iorga et al, 2018;Macneill et al, 2017;Memon et al, 2012;Nergiz-Unal et al, 2014;Ohara et al, 2014;Vankim et al, 2016;Yahia et al, 2011;Yean et al, 2013).…”

“…The results showed that women aspired smaller weights, BMIs and body formats than those found or perceived at the time. This way they would be closer to the female social ideal and increase the degree of satisfaction with their respective appearances (González-Carrascosa et al, 2014;Iorga et al, 2018;Macneill et al, 2017;Ohara et al, 2014;Yahia et al, 2011). Overweight individuals obtained higher scores in the assessment scales of disordered eating attitudes, and indicated a higher probability of developing eating disorders compared to eutrophic and low-weight individuals (Iorga et al, 2018;Ko et al, 2015;Memon et al, 2012;Silva et al, 2017).…”