Eating styles of Chilean university students: what's new?

Abstract

Introduction: in the student population, the transition from the school system to the university system often involves a normative life crisis; one of the central challenges of this stage is the shift from an external normative system in permanent operation to individual self-regulation of behavior. One of the areas most affected by this change are self-care habits, including the changes associated with the eating behavior of students, which tend to have a greater impact on accelerated body weight gain, especially during the first years. Objective: to characterize the presence of eating styles-restrictive eating, emotional eating, and external eating-in a sample of Chilean university population. Methods: this was an exploratory, descriptive, cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 1230 university students (59.1 % women, 41.9 % men) with a mean age of 21 years (SD +/- 3.32). The version adapted to the Chilean population of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire was applied. Results: the average scores of the total population for restrictive eating, emotional eating, and external eating were 2.56, 2.48, and 3.13, respectively. Gender differences were observed for all three styles. Conclusion: External eating appears as the dominant intake style. This is key to understand the factors affecting the eating behavior of Chilean university students, and then develop effective interventions to consolidate eating habits appropriate for adult life.