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“It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students
The negative impact of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet on health is evident across the lifespan, but particularly during the university period. Usually, the diet of university students is rich in sweetened drinks and processed foods and low in fruits, vegetables and legumes. Although there is an...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468761/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32752041 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12082309 |
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author | Vélez-Toral, Mercedes Rodríguez-Reinado, Carmen Ramallo-Espinosa, Ana Andrés-Villas, Montserrat |
author_facet | Vélez-Toral, Mercedes Rodríguez-Reinado, Carmen Ramallo-Espinosa, Ana Andrés-Villas, Montserrat |
author_sort | Vélez-Toral, Mercedes |
collection | PubMed |
description | The negative impact of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet on health is evident across the lifespan, but particularly during the university period. Usually, the diet of university students is rich in sweetened drinks and processed foods and low in fruits, vegetables and legumes. Although there is an association between maintaining a healthy diet and the frequency of cooking at home, the time currently spent on cooking or learning how to cook is decreasing globally. The main aim of this study was to explore university students’ perceptions about healthy cooking and barriers to eating healthily. A group of 26 students participated in four focus groups. Content analysis was conducted using Atlas.ti v.8. Students perceived cooking healthily as a more complicated and time-consuming process than cooking in general. Individual and environmental factors were the most reported barriers. Costs and time, among others, were the main barriers pointed out by students with regard to healthy eating. This study highlights the need to develop interventions that modify these false perceptions about cooking healthily, and to train students so that they are able to cook healthy meals in a quick, easy, and cost-effective way. Further, specific actions are required in the university setting to minimize access to unhealthy options and to promote those linked to healthy eating. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7468761 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74687612020-09-04 “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students Vélez-Toral, Mercedes Rodríguez-Reinado, Carmen Ramallo-Espinosa, Ana Andrés-Villas, Montserrat Nutrients Article The negative impact of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet on health is evident across the lifespan, but particularly during the university period. Usually, the diet of university students is rich in sweetened drinks and processed foods and low in fruits, vegetables and legumes. Although there is an association between maintaining a healthy diet and the frequency of cooking at home, the time currently spent on cooking or learning how to cook is decreasing globally. The main aim of this study was to explore university students’ perceptions about healthy cooking and barriers to eating healthily. A group of 26 students participated in four focus groups. Content analysis was conducted using Atlas.ti v.8. Students perceived cooking healthily as a more complicated and time-consuming process than cooking in general. Individual and environmental factors were the most reported barriers. Costs and time, among others, were the main barriers pointed out by students with regard to healthy eating. This study highlights the need to develop interventions that modify these false perceptions about cooking healthily, and to train students so that they are able to cook healthy meals in a quick, easy, and cost-effective way. Further, specific actions are required in the university setting to minimize access to unhealthy options and to promote those linked to healthy eating. MDPI 2020-07-31 /pmc/articles/PMC7468761/ /pubmed/32752041 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12082309 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Vélez-Toral, Mercedes Rodríguez-Reinado, Carmen Ramallo-Espinosa, Ana Andrés-Villas, Montserrat “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students |
title | “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students |
title_full | “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students |
title_fullStr | “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students |
title_full_unstemmed | “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students |
title_short | “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students |
title_sort | “it’s important but, on what level?”: healthy cooking meanings and barriers to healthy eating among university students |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468761/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32752041 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12082309 |
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