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Health Behaviors in College Freshman Students

Thursday, July 14, 2011: 8:30 AM

Simone Salandy, MS1
Mary A. Nies, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAAHB2
Linman Sun3
Donna Kazemi, PhD4
Jacek Dmochowski, PhD2
(1)College of Health and Human Services, Health Services Research, UNCC, Charlotte, NC
(2)College of Health and Human Services, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
(3)Math Department, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
(4)School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to describe the relationship of nutrition in stress management for college students.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to describe the relationship of nutrition and interpersonal relations in college students.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between physical activity, nutrition, health responsibility, stress, and interpersonal relations in college freshman. College students are vulnerable during the transition from high school to college. Understanding the health behaviors of college freshman is an important area for health promotion. The Health Promotion model guides the study. 

Methods: Methods: This was a cross sectional study. Undergraduate college freshman students, N=74 between the ages of 18 to 25, were administered the Health Promoting Lifestyle questionnaire at a southern university.  The participants completed informed consent prior to completing the forms. The Health-Promoting Lifestyle questionnaire, with established reliability and validity, uses a 4-point response format to assess self-reported health behaviors. The questionnaire subscales for Nutrition, Physical Activity, Health Responsibility, Interpersonal Relations, and Stress Management were used. The statistical analyses were performed using SAS 9.2 for windows. 

Results: The participants in the study were between the ages 18 and 25, 70% women, 62.1%, White, and 71.6 % lived primarily on campus. The findings of the study suggest (p = 0.07) that students who have better nutrition will be less stressed and manage their stress better than students who have poor nutrition.  Participants with better nutrition will have better interpersonal relation skills (p <0.01). Physical activity did not have a significant association with interpersonal relations or stress management. In addition, we found that students that have better health responsibility were more likely to have more nutritious diets (p=0.001). White students had better nutrition compared to the Black students (p=0.09). 

Conclusion: College freshman students will exhibit lower levels of stress and have better interpersonal relation skills if they have healthy diets. These findings can lead to a larger study to support the practice-research interface in diverse college students and to implement healthy meal plans for students.

See more of: Studies of Health Behaviors of College Students
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