Healthy Eating Habits of Undergraduate Students

The World Health Organization has defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

From early childhood to late adulthood, health has been a universal lifestyle that determines the growth and development and health and well-being of an individual. It can support and provide productivity in late adulthood and helps contribute to healthy ageing (DHHS 2016). For an individual to enjoy the quality of life and have adequate eating and healthy habits, must be able to fulfil the grounds of health as it determines what a person can do and achieve in their life. Various factors can contribute to a person’s lifestyle that can produce either a healthy or unhealthy diet. A healthy diet can help individuals and protect them against malnutrition, as well as non-communicable diseases (NCDs). An unhealthy diet can contribute to a lack of physical activity and can also increase the risks of obesity, cardiovascular diseases and some cancers (DHHS 2016). Although basic nutrition and diet assist an individual in many other ways, being able to eat the right amounts of nutrients is very crucial for the body to maintain its proper functioning.

The priority of this essay is on healthy eating habits, and how it improves for undergraduate students during heavy stress-inducing times before, during and after the exam period.

For young adults, the transition from high school to university setting has been extremely difficult. Although young adults get to experience a new sense of “freedom” for example; having part-time jobs, being able to relocate to another school or campus, creating new social contacts and becoming responsible for their own daily needs. Despite students experiencing their new roles in society, there are also negative side effects of this new “freedom”. Undergraduate students could deal with the pressures of having a part-time job and dealing with the heavy workload of study full time at the same time, relocation and separation with family as the university or campus is too far and having to live with a flatmate or even dealing with financial stress. With this transition, it can cause physical and mental strain and can also increase the levels of stress from where they are at. For many undergraduate students, it has been presented that maladaptive coping mechanisms and change in behaviours has played a huge part amongst students, with promoting the lack of time and time management and unhealthy convenient eating as their first food options during the exam period. During these periods, undergraduates experience intense stress levels and it shows how bad their eating habits are. Students would often show a desire for energy drinks and nutrient-dense based foods that are high in sugar and fat and are immediately prompted by eating out fast foods or having fast food delivery options.

To promote healthy dietary habits amongst undergraduate students in universities in Australia, creating a supportive environment by having an environment filled with healthy food choices and physiological support to reduce stress-related behaviours, such as eating discretionary food. Displaying vital information in a fun and engaging way to encourage healthy eating choices. Strengthening community action by creating awareness of stress-related problems and finding ways to solve this issue. Developing personal skills being aware of their unhealthy eating habits, changing their environment to reduce their risks of following this habit, being in an environment that is surrounded by healthy food choices.

Enabling by granting easy access to healthy food choices. The target group to understand the benefits of their food consumption knowing the calories and health benefits on the labelling and advocating easy access to information and promotion about our health project.

The action priority is seeing results in undergraduate students improving their eating habits before during and after the exam period. The objective is seeing if any change of behaviour was implemented during the exam period. The most affected target group are the 19 – 24-year old’s both females and males undergraduate students in Australia, who are in a heavy level of stress-inducing times before, during and after the exam period.

The biological key factors that can contribute to healthy eating are – Hunger, taste and appetite. Undergraduate students are well known for being exposed to social media and other media advertisements. With McDonald’s and KFC as a well-known advertising fast-food chain, it increases the pleasure for the individual to experience from eating a food that increases their diet. The taste, smell, appearance of the food etc. makes individuals ‘crave’ for unhealthy foods, more so than healthy foods.

Socio-cultural is a key factor that also contributes to healthy eating. In general, culture refers to the beliefs and values and knowledge that an individual has accumulated between themselves and past generations (Boyden, 2004). The present cultural and social norms had helped, and lead individuals develop the meaning of socialisation, social media and advertising i.e. the transfer of between their attitudes, values and beliefs and the change in behaviour within each and different generations. Some individuals tend to eat or don’t eat certain foods, due to their cultural or religious and social beliefs. Another factor that can contribute to healthy eating amongst students is social pressure. This may result to being peer pressured, tease or bullied about their race and how they deal with things according to their culture and religion or they may feel societal pressured on what they see on social media.

Behavioural key factors that can contribute to healthy eating are alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, use of illicit drugs, and lack of physical activity can all affect an individual’s physical and mental health.

An economic key factor that contributes to healthy eating is the cost and income of foods an individual can afford and how they can afford it. Without having a part-time job or any form of income, their diets may consume unhealthy diets of high intakes of fats and sugars but low intakes of fruits and vegetables. Depending on the costs of foods, it doesn’t always mean that the healthy foods are low in cost, sometimes the least healthy options are the cheapest and more affordable but lack in nutritional values, whereas the healthy foods could be expensive but high in nutritional value. Although many undergraduate students have part-time jobs, other students may find it difficult to even have a part-time job whilst studying full time. Undergraduate students with low income may find it challenging purchasing well balanced and healthy food options, as the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommends various large amounts of healthy food choices to be endorsed.

It is well known and possible for undergraduate students in Australia to experience high levels of increased psychological stress. Students may encounter these experiences from financial stress, lack of physical activity - sleep and their poor diet, the responsibility of balancing both full-time studies and part-time work, living away from their family due to the university or campus being too far and even dealing with the pressures to excel in competitive job markets. In particular, it’s a combination of both positive and negative outcomes for the individual’s future.

This project was majority targeted at undergraduate students who have experienced or were shown any signs of stress either mild, moderate or severe stress levels inducing times before, during and after exam periods, as these gave an indication that was associated with socio-demographic attributes, risky health behaviours and poor dietary arrangements. These findings were able to provide good overall insight and information for future undergraduate students on healthy eating and health promotions around the university to help reduce the stress levels in university students towards exam periods.