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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...

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Autores principales: Vélez-Toral, Mercedes, Rodríguez-Reinado, Carmen, Ramallo-Espinosa, Ana, Andrés-Villas, Montserrat
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
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.
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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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