Unhealthy Eating Habits

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Students who experienced transition from high school life to university life are matching to freedom and independence. Moreover, this would be the phase where these young people are responsible for eating habits and food choices. Eating habits have been public health concern as they are the determinants of their healthy status. Many studies have perceived students that live in university life tend to practice unhealthy eating habits because they live far away from their family and more exposed to stress. Unhealthy eating habits may contribute to energy intake and resulting to excessive weight gain and chronic diseases. Furthermore, studies in India indicates that due to urbanization and other factors, students seem to be less focused on eating…show more content…
First and foremost, individual factors such as food prices and dietary knowledge have been one of the most influenced factors that affecting students’ eating behaviors. Limitation of money could be one of the barrier for students to choose healthy food. This is because they have allocated their expenses to different purposes such as foods, fuel, assignments and etc. Research have found out that “students who are living in student residence become more self-dependent where price and cost of foods become more important than health” (Tom et al, 2014). Thus, students did not put healthy eating habits as their main priority due to other circumstances. However, some of the students have different opinion where they believed “some vegetables and fruits are cheaper than cookies. So, that’s also one of the reasons why sometimes they buy apples (instead of cookies); because they are cheaper (Tom et al,2014). Next, some of the participants believed that students who have dietary knowledge would practice healthy eating habits. However, studies in China neglected that medical students who have higher knowledge regarding to dietary habits showed early risk factors for chronic disease due to poor eating habits (Kurubaran, Sami, Ahmad, Al-abed, Rizal & Syed,2012). Therefore, food prices and dietary knowledge play huge important roles in students’ eating…show more content…
Lastly, university characteristics is one of the major factor in influencing students eating habits. Time seems to be important factors for students when talking about food. Students who are burden with workloads and extra cocurricular activities would rather choose food which are convenient for them. It is important for school caterer to provide them with healthy food choices. Time would be more important when it comes to exams. These students would not spend hours just to prepare food for themselves while they need to focus on their exams. (Tom et all,2014) highlighted that students who are studying during exam periods would like to spend as little time as possible on cooking. As for school caterer, they also should perceive about dietary knowledge so they would not serve snacks or high content of fats to students. They also should consider food preference, taste and hygiene in preparing food for them. (Jesus, Rosa, Antonio, Ma Dolores & Lucia ,2015) have conducted studies about students eating habits and catering services of the university. They stated both male and female students give higher scores for quality, taste of foods and prices. In order to promote healthy eating habits, school caterer should notice about these important elements so that the students would buy food from them and not going to fast food restaurants. After that, it can be seen that stress students would have high tendency to practice binge eating habits. People living in a stressful

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