Whilst high rates of binge drinking have previously been documented among student populations [3, 26], and there is a popular stereotype of students as heavy drinkers, only one pattern (convenience, red meat & alcohol) was high in alcoholic beverages. The authors declare that they have no competing interest. Child obesity is linked to increased risk of developing diabetes in adulthood, both autoimmune forms of diabetes and different forms of type 2 diabetes, a new study published in Diabetologia reports. Several studies suggest that prevention of obesity in the young population is crucial. EFS was primarily responsible for data collection and analysis, with advice from JMR. Longitudinal research is now needed to investigate this possibility. Such engagement in dieting behaviour and dysfunctional relationships with food not only impact on dietary adequacy [14, 15], but may also create tension and conflict for young people as they develop relationships with new peer groups [16]. Dedes, Vassilis Four principal components were retained, which explained 21.7% of the total variance in food intake. California Privacy Statement, Compliance with lifestyle (different from diet) recommendations by sex in the population under study: students of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), EHU12/24 study(Mean values and standard deviations, percentages), Table 4. The . Among reception-aged children, those aged four and five, the rates of obesity rose from 9.9% in 2019-20 to 14.4% in 2020-21. This work was supported by grants from the UPV/EHU (EHU12/24), the Vice Rector for Innovation, Social Outreach and Cultural Activities of the UPV/EHU, funding by the contract-programme formalised with the Basque Government (code of the Campus Bizia Lab project: 17ARRO, 18ARRO and 19ARRO), the Vice Rector for Students and Employability of the UPV/EHU and Basque Government (2016); and a pre-doctoral scholarship from the Basque Language Vice-chancellor of the UPV/EHU. Almost one in five students spent over 40 on food each week. Obesity can also cause psychological problems including low self-esteem and depression due to social stigma. J Am Diet Assoc. Associate Professor in Nutrition at Kingston University . Central London location. We would also like to acknowledge Anthony Johns from Tinuviel Software for his assistance in setting up the online survey. We obtained weight change by subtracting, for each individual, self-reported weights collected at the different time points. The FFQ was piloted among 40 students at the University of Sheffield. Visit. Yamamoto, Ryohei Also, it assesses the relationship between the sociodemographic characteristics and risk of overweight and obesity in this population. Obesity is the most common medical condition in women of reproductive age. A total of 1448 students comprised the final sample. Grech, Amanda Matsui, Isao University of Glasgow researchers looked at health surveys of nearly 200,000 adults. FFQs are not optimal for the measurement of absolute dietary intake, but the use of a dietary pattern approach permitted ranking according to food group intake and so was considered appropriate. Lifestyle risk factors of students: a cluster analytical approach. Finally, the fourth component was labelled convenience, red meat & alcohol, because it had high factor loadings for red meat and savoury foods requiring little or no preparation, and it was the only component with a positive loading on alcoholic drinks. Matsushita, Taisuke The small number of students recruited from St Andrews may been seen as an under-representation of students from a Scottish university, but it should be noted that the total student population at St Andrews (population of around 8000 students) is much smaller than that of Sheffield, Ulster and KCL (between 25,000 and 30,000 students). Yoshimura, Ryuichi Food intake varied amongst university students. For supplementary material referred to in this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114521001483, Table 2. Adv Prev Med. Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) students accounted for 25.1% of students living permanently in the UK. Physical activity can protect against weight gain, but globally, people just aren't doing enough of it. Ishibashi, Chisaki University of Glasgow researchers looked at health surveys of nearly 200,000 adults. The freshman weight gain phenomenon revisited. Examination of scatter plots revealed no evidence of non-linear relationships between component scores and nutrient intakes. 1998;30:18598 Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9573452. J Am Diet Assoc. Alcohol consumption has received most research attention revealing that binge drinking is endemic [2, 3]. Prevalence of overweight/obesity and its associated factors among university students from 22 countries Authors Karl Peltzer 1 , Supa Pengpid 2 , T Alafia Samuels 3 , Neslihan Keser zcan 4 , Carolina Mantilla 5 , Onja H Rahamefy 6 , Mee Lian Wong 7 , Alexander Gasparishvili 8 Affiliations Northern Ireland: Public Health England; 2014. p. 6184. Allman-Farinelli, Margaret in UK university students. Age groups were prominent in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in males, but an exception in females. Key messages Of the different sedentary behaviour types, TV viewing is most consistently related with higher body mass index (BMI) and large waist circumference in both sexes. Pearsons product moment correlation coefficients were calculated between pattern scores and absolute nutrient intakes. El AW, Stock C, John J, Deeny P, Phillips C, Snelgrove S, et al. Total loading time: 0 Generally, students at Ulster University favoured less healthful patterns, whilst those at the Universities of Southampton, St Andrews and KCL tended towards more healthful diets. Missing data on social class for students at the University of Sheffield precluded adjustment for this possibility. Furthermore students following this pattern were also more likely to smoke, have frequent consumption of take-aways and pre-prepared foods and engage in lower levels of physical activity. This association has not been documented among a university student population, but corroborates associations found in several adult studies [31, 32]. . Available from: http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/clustering-unhealthy-behaviours-over-time. These patterns explained approximately one fifth of the variance in food intake. Results from Years 14 (combined) of the Rolling Programme (2008/20092011/12). A student survey conducted in Northern Ireland reported a positive gradient in diet quality by year of study [3]. The impact of a community-based food skills intervention on cooking confidence, food preparation methods and dietary choices - an exploratory trial. The study is based on the early BMI history of over 37,000 males as well as information regarding their adult thrombi if any. Adele, Ed Sheeran 'too . New York: Harper Row; 2012. Obesity and overweight are associated with age and level of studies. eating less or different food, or exercising to lose weight)(Reference Haynes, Kersbergen and Sutin87). Compliance with dietary recommendations according to body fat (BF) classification in the population under study: students of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), EHU12/24 study(Mean values and standard deviations, percentages), Table 5. Television watching is a strong obesity risk factor, in part because exposure to food and beverage advertising can influence what people eat. Infrequent consumption of meals prepared from raw ingredients (p<0.001), and frequent consumption of pre-prepared foods (p<0.001) and ready meals/take-aways (p<0.001) were also independently associated with high snacking pattern scores. Compared with normal-weight students, overweight students had greater waist and hip circumferences and higher blood pressure, fasting and 2-h insulin, fasting total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, VLDL cholesterol, triacylglycerol, and leptin levels. Gao, Lilian Scientists believe that genes may increase a person's likelihood of having obesity but that outside factors, such as an abundant food supply or little physical activity, also may be required for . A web-survey, comprising a validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) (Tinuviel Software Ltd., Warrington, UK) was used to assess dietary intake. Chen, Leqin Among the postbiotics . A limited body of data indicates that the dietary behaviours of UK university students are not conducive to either short- or long-term health. Less healthful dietary patterns were positively associated with lifestyle risk factors such as smoking, low physical activity and take-away consumption. Cookies policy. 2017). Hung has authored more than 15+ scientific publications and served in numerous advisory roles.<br><br> Founder of Drug & Diet . The prevalence of overweight and obesity in adolescents is defined according to the WHO growth reference for school-aged children and adolescents (overweight = 1 standard deviation body mass index for age and sex, and obese = 2 standard deviations body mass index for age and sex). 2014;39:50813. Adults without a high school degree or equivalent had the highest self-reported obesity (37.8%), followed by adults with some college (35.6%) or high school graduates (35.5%), and then by college graduates (26.3%). Feature Flags: { Neumark-Sztainer D, Wall M, Larson N, Eisenberg M, Loth K. Dieting and disordered eating behaviors from adolescence to young adulthood: findings from a 10-year longitudinal study. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. 2006;106:20017. The first dietary component had high positive factor loadings ( 0.32) for pulses, beans and lentils, tofu, meat alternatives, hummus, nuts, and other green vegetables and salad items. Consequently, the prominence of the vegetarian and health-conscious dietary patterns may have been over-estimated in this study. university students when they start their university education (Ozbahar Acar, 2015). It should be noted that these models are developmental and clearly only cover some of the potential antecedents of following such patterns. The inactivity at different ages it is a major problem for most countries. Mccourt HJ, Draffin CR, Woodside JV, Cardwell CR, Young IS, Hunter SJ, et al. It is of note that a vegetarian diet was the predominant pattern identified in the current study, and indeed 10% of students described themselves as vegetarian. Render date: 2023-03-05T02:12:19.807Z This email provided study details and emphasised that students did not have to be eating a healthy diet to participate. Devine P, Lloyd K, Gray AM. This data is gathered as part of the National Child Measurement Programme and published by NHS Digital. Thabethe was a final year Bsc Dietics and Human Nutrition student at the University of KwaZulu Natal when she was crowned the Miss SA runner up in 2022. Brunner TA, van der Horst K, Siegrist M. Convenience food products. The snacking pattern was strongly positively correlated with energy-adjusted non-milk extrinsic sugars (NMES) (r=0.524; P<0.01). Cited 29 Aug 2018. Lead a dynamic research team in the activity of national food consumption surveys in Ireland including the impact of dietary intake on population health. (Do the Spanish University students follow Mediterranean dietary patterns? The wider literature consistently reports a positive association between socioeconomic status and diet quality across UK population groups [21, 23, 28]. Addict. Yang, Wah Otsuki, Naoko Objective: To describe lifestyle behaviors (fruit and vegetable intake, alcohol intake, physical activity, sitting time, smoking, drug use, sleep, sexual health) and health risk factors (body mass index, food insecurity, mental health) in a sample of Australian university students. The health-conscious pattern, which had a favourable nutrient profile - being particularly dense in micronutrients such as biotin, vitamin B12, vitamin D and selenium - is at odds with the stereotype of student eating patterns, but concurs with published research on dietary patterns among UK adults [21, 22] and a small-scale study of university students in Birmingham, UK [4]. In particular, the prevalence of overweight/obesity among Spanish university students is about 20 % ( 10 - 12). One important aspect relates to diet and there is emerging evidence that university students may consume poor quality diets, with potential implications for body weight and long-term health. Just over one-third of students were studying a health-related degree. "useRatesEcommerce": false Northstone K, Emmett P, Rogers I. Dietary patterns in pregnancy and associations with socio-demographic and lifestyle factors. This was demonstrated by a study of 34,000 students from 2011 to 2018. . The majority of students were White British (n=911; 62.9%) and registered for full-time study (n=1394; 96.3%). Societies, clubs and culture. Participation Rates in Higher Education: Academic Years 2006/20072013/2014. Body mass index during childhood , adolescence and young adulthood in relation to adult overweight and adiposity: the Fels longitudinal study. Yarnell JW, Fehily AM, Milbank J, Sweetnam P, Walker C. A short dietary questionnaire for use in an epidemiological survey: comparison with weight dietary records. In general, these sex differences observed here could be due to the fact that women are more likely to find healthy eating more important(Reference Holmbck, Ericson and Gullberg85), and therefore, they followed more adequate dietary habits than men, eating a greater number of EO daily, skipping fewer breakfasts, taking more time on those meals, and they had a better diet quality, as other authors have highlighted(Reference Maskarinec, Namatame and Kang22). - UK-domiciled students by age In Model 2, lower leisure-time physical activity participation (p=0.012), attendance at Ulster University (p=0.029), living with parents/other relatives or in university catered accommodation (p=0.033), and full-time student status (p<0.001) were independently associated with greater pattern score. Obesity rates among children and adolescents worldwide shifted from less than 1% in 1975 to nearly 6% among girls and 8% . University student food attitudes and behaviour survey. for this article. Puhl RM, Moss-Racusin CA, Schwartz MB (2007) Internalization of . Weight gain and obesity among university students is therefore a recognized health issue. Between the NAP5 (2013) and NAP7 (2021) surveys and excluding those patients who were pregnant, the estimated median age of patients increased by 2.3 years (50.5 to 52.8 years). This study also highlights a number of future research needs. Students in Northern Ireland appeared to favour less healthful dietary patterns than those in Great Britain. Int J Obes. and The Obesity Profile (previously named NCMP and Child Obesity Profile) displays data from the National Child Measurement Programme ( NCMP) showing the prevalence of obesity, severe obesity,. The aim of the study is to investigate the level of physical activity of university students. The University of Sheffield was its sponsor. The number of components retained was determined by the scree plot, parallel analysis and component interpretability [20]. The snacking and convenience, red meat and alcohol dietary patterns exhibited the strongest correlations with energy intake (r=0.582 and r=0.547 respectively). Genes also may contribute to a person's susceptibility to weight gain. Papadaki A, Hondros G, Scott J, Kapsokefalou M. Eating habits of university students living at, or away from home in Greece. Appetite. Prevalencia de peso insuficiente, sobrepeso y obesidad, ingesta de energa y perfil calrico de la dieta de estudiantes universitarios de la Comunidad Autnoma de la Regin de Murcia (Espaa) (Prevalence of insufficient weight, overweight and obesity, intake of energy and caloric profile of the diet of University students of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia (Spain)), Association between take-out food consumption and obesity among chinese university students: a cross-sectional study, Prevalence of overweight/obesity, anaemia and their associations among female university students in Dubai, United Arab Emirates: a cross-sectional study, The correlation between obesity and metabolic syndrome in young female university students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Nutritive value of meals, dietary habits and nutritive status in Croatian university students according to gender, Assessment of weight status, dietary habits and beliefs, physical activity, and nutritional knowledge among university students, Relationships between food consumption and living arrangements among university students in four European countriesa cross-sectional study, Sex differences in lifestyle behaviors among U.S. college Freshmen, Eating habits of University students living at, or away from home in Greece, Gender, residence and ethnicity affect freshman BMI and dietary habits, Differences in the association of diet quality with body fat distribution between men and women, Students university healthy lifestyle practice: quantitative analysis, Predictors of Self-rated Health and Lifestyle Behaviours in Swedish University Students, Hospital M. Transitions in drinking behaviors across the college years: a latent transition analysis, Behavioral health risk profiles of undergraduate university students in England, wales, and northern Ireland: a cluster analysis, Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet and lifestyle characteristics of university students in cyprus: a cross-sectional survey, Social relationships and healthful dietary behaviour: evidence from over-50s in the EPIC cohort, UK, Physiological responses to food intake throughout the day, Tracking of obesity-related behaviours from childhood to adulthood: a systematic review, Results of a 2-year randomized, controlled obesity prevention trial: effects on diet, activity and sleep behaviors in an at-risk young adult population, Adolescent diet quality and cardiovascular disease risk factors and incident cardiovascular disease in middle-aged women, the prevalence of dietary supplement use among college students: a nationwide survey in Japan, Consumption and reasons for use of dietary supplements in an Australian university population, Patterns of dietary supplement use among college students, Cluster Analysis of Health-Related Lifestyles in University Students, Clustering of lifestyle factors in Spanish university students: the relationship between smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity and diet quality, Eating habits, food and health related attitudes and beliefs reported by French students, The EHU12/24 cohort: survey design, instruments and participants, International Standards for Anthropometric Assessment. Many studies paid attention to the worldwide decline in physical activity (PA) and increase the sedentary and obesity. This study aimed to identify dietary patterns that exist within a UK university student population, to assess the nutritional profile of these patterns, and to examine socio-demographic and lifestyle variables underpinning these patterns. 2009;67:8394. Uni-versity students. Obesity is associated with poorer youth fitness. London: British Government; 2015. Obes Facts. In Model 1 (demographic variables only) female gender (p<0.001), middle age group (p=0.020), moderate leisure-time activity levels (p=0.045) and ex-smoker status (p=0.025) were independently associated with higher scores on the vegetarian dietary pattern. Demographics / sample characteristics. With respect to other lifestyles such as PA, probably cultural practices and childhood habits can be associated with a higher PA level in men than women(Reference Trost, Pate and Sallis86). The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Peter Emery at Kings College London and Dr. Penelope Nestel at The University of Southampton for their assistance in administration of the survey. Whilst it is likely that students who lack culinary skills may be forced to rely on convenience foods to ensure meal provision, other factors such as time pressures and (lack of) cooking enjoyment may be more salient in determining students decisions around consumption of these foods [33, 34] . Female students favoured the vegetarian pattern, whilst male students preferred the convenience, red meat & alcohol pattern. The snacking and convenience, red meat and alcohol patterns have common features with published data on the food preferences of British university students [2, 4]. 2012;13:40511. The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. This study has been conducted with University students in Turkey. 3, 4 Preventing overweight in children is expected to be a promising approach to reducing obesity and The decision to participate or not may have been influenced by several factors, including social, educational and health conditions, which may again correlate with outcome risk factors. Another outcome of the observation was the information provided by the Student Union, which has a great inluence on students. Dietary preferences also varied between participating universities. Finally, the public health impact of dietary patterns and other lifestyle risk factors established during university become most important if these behaviours track forward into working adult life and represent a blueprint for long-term dietary preferences. Finally, fourth, the design itself was cross-sectional so causal conclusions cannot be drawn from the behaviour factors selected. It is possible that as students mature they become increasingly aware of the impact of dietary choices on health and well-being, and health thus becomes an increasingly important determinant of food choice. Table S2. Contrary to what one might expect, UPV/EHU men students with excess BF were more likely to have an adequate lunch/dinner duration and to be abstemious and women students with excess BF were more likely to have an adequate sitting time, a high HEI-2010 and a high PA level. Mizui, Masayuki Hum Nutr Appl Nutr. Students gender, age, year of study, geographical location and cooking ability were associated with differences in pattern behaviour. The lack of association between university attended and consumption of the convenience, red meat & alcohol diet also deserves attention. volume17, Articlenumber:90 (2018) In according with the results will see how . University of Sheffield Medical School Research Ethics Review, SMBRER288; University of St Andrews Teaching and Research Ethics Committee, MD11298; University of Ulster Research Ethics, 14/0096. Obesity is a severe public health problem that has reached epidemic levels and is developing rapidly. These universities had responded positively to an invitation to participate in the research study; contact was made via university Human Nutrition or Health Sciences departments. Article 2023 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. hasContentIssue true, This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (, The Author(s), 2021. Adult obesity rates are highest in the United States, Mexico, New Zealand, and Hungry and lowest in Japan and Korea (OECD, 2017).