This document discusses the impact of disrupted eating habits and food insecurity on college students' health and well-being. It summarizes research finding that many college students engage in problematic eating behaviors like restrictive dieting, emotional eating, and binge eating due to changes in their lifestyle and identity upon entering college. A study of over 2,700 college students found that a significant portion exhibited disturbed eating habits and irregular food schedules linked to higher stress, anxiety, depression, and obsessive behaviors. The document argues that college students would benefit from improved nutrition education and interventions to help manage stress and develop healthy eating patterns.

1. Hungry for Success
The Impact of Food Insecurity & Disruptive
Eating Habits on College Students
By Nicole Margulis
NTR 300 Fall Online

2. Identity Changes in Young Adults
• Diets of young adults can change drastically upon entering college
• This is a result of changes in home life, schedules, and identity
• New challenge of balancing learning, self-discovery, while maintaining
quality nutrition
• These changes can be stressful and impact numerous health related
behaviors
• Young adults are at particularly high risk for weight gain and emotional
disorders

3. What is Disturbed Eating?
Behaviors include:
• Putting off eating to adhere to schedule
• Emotional Eating
• Binge Eating
• Night Eating
• Strict Dieting
In many cases, severity does not warrant formal diagnosis of an eating disorder
Still a problem for students

4. Sociocultural Pressures
• Living & learning in a new place creates new pressures to fit in
1. Body Image Perceptions
2. Accepted degrees of thinness
3. Mass media’s misleading beauty standards
4. Pressure to conform to peer group
5. Financial pressures of independent living and school costs
Chart courtesy of Hunting
…and many, many more!
University Study

5. The Nutrition and Mental Health Cycle
Poor Nutrition
Anxiety
O.C.D.
Misuse of
Meds
Depressi
on
Irregular
Sleep
Excessive
Exercise
Low Self-
Esteem

6. Understanding the Diets
of College Students
• Oregon State University’s
Website offers insight into
what full time students eat (or
don’t eat)
• Females are more likely to
lack fiber in their diets, while
males eat more fats
• Dietary practices of young adults in college fall short of nutrition recommendations
• Students often lacking in folic acid, calcium, potassium, fiber, iron, Vitamin C & A
• Though consuming excessive calories, they are not getting the nutrition they require for
healthy minds and bodies.

7. Nutrition Education & Psychological Services
• Continuous rise in mental disorders among college students over the past 70 years
• Continuous rise in obesity, disruptive eating & eating disorders in young adults
• High costs of personalized treatment for these issues prevent many from getting help
NUTRITION EDUCATION HAS THE POTENTIAL TO HELP!

8. What Do the Studies Say?
Study conducted in 2013 by Virginia Quick of Rutgers University and published
in The Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics:
• Measured the disturbed eating behaviors and associated psychological
characteristics of college students
• Survey conducted at three large public universities in the U.S.
• Measured:
1. Attempts to restrict food intake
2. Food schedules
3. Types of food eaten
4. Importance of body image
5. Stress levels
6. Influence of emotions on eating

9. Excerpt From the
Survey
Notably:
33.9% reported eating
fried food three to four
times a week.
Majority of students
stated they eat green,
yellow or red veggies
rarely or only once or
twice per week.
Females composed 63% of responses

10. Results Summary
• Many participants engage in disruptive eating practices
• 1/4 of women and 1/5 of men engage in restrictive eating habits due to
body image pressures
• 1/3 use food to reward certain behaviors
• 1/5 expressed moderate levels of depression
• 1/2 admitted to engaging in obsessive compulsive behaviors
• 1/5 experience severe anxiety

11. What Does It All Mean?
• A total of 2730 students of various ethnicities
completed the survey
• Age range of 18 to 26
• Study reveals that a substantial number of young
adults suffer from irregular eating habits and
psychological disorders
Education and intervention are needed!

12. Possible Solutions
• Findings suggest students would benefit from nutrition education
• Stress management skills and training for students
• Time management instruction
• Screenings for eating & emotional troubles lead to early intervention
Awareness. Education. Intervention.

13. Works Cited
Gower, Brittany, Christina E. Hand, and Zachariah K. Crooks. "Undergraduate
Research Journal for the Human Sciences." Undergraduate Research Journal
for the Human Sciences. N.p., 2008. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.
http://www.kon.org/urc/v7/crooks.html.
Klampe, Michelle. "News & Research Communications." Study: College Students
Not Eating Enough Fruits and Veggies. N.p., 27 Apr. 2011. Web. 23 Sept. 2014.
http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2011/aug/study-college-students-not-eating-enough-
fruits-and-veggies.
Quick, Virginia M., and C. Byrd-Bredbenner. "Disturbed Eating Behaviors and
Associated Psychographic Characteristics of College Students." Journal of Human
Nutrition and Dietetics 26 (2013): 53-63. Archives of General Psychiatry. Web. 23
Sept. 2014.
Images Courtesy of Google Images