Is Nutritional Behaviour of Students Healthy Results of a Eating Habits Survey

Abstract

A direct anonymous survey was conducted with 200 students of all specialties (167 women and 33 men) from the Medical University of Plovdiv, aged 18 to 25 years. Respondents answered two sets of questions that aim at distinguishing healthy eating habits and behavior, associated with this daily activity, from unhealthy habits, that are conditioned by the dynamic characteristics of today's globalizing society. The first group of 15 questions relates to circumstances, directly connected with the nutrition process and aims at detecting the frequency of harmful habits of a particular behavioral type. The second group of 3 multilevel issues specifies the spatiotemporal parameters of daily meals, as well as the habitual social environment of respondents during meals. The results show a clear tendency towards eating habits that are unfavorable to the healthy eating (eating in front of the TV or the computer, omitting meals for dietary considerations, dinner after 23.00, alcohol consumption, smoking during meals) and the presence of reactive behavioral patterns (the overwhelming majority of respondents - over 50% - ignore breakfast daily or several times a week, prefer to eat alone, do not eat regularly at certain times). The interpretation of these results leads to the elaboration of a model with sustainable elements, which characterizes the behavioral pattern of feeding in the respondents. The statistical analysis highlighted as the most important and statistically significant the following characteristics of young people's eating behavior: "To eat alone", "To eat in front of the TV", "Do not eat regularly at certain times", "Do not have breakfast in the morning" and "To eat while talking on the phone". These five elements can be defined both as a result of negative attitudes towards healthy eating habits and as factors that affect overall attitudes and eating habits of students of the target age group.