Studying nutrition could influence weight gain in female students

This month ' s Paper of the Month is from theJournal of Nutritional Scienceand is entitled ‘Majoring in nutrition influences BMI of female college students' . Authors Mee Young Hong, Tahirih L. Shepanski and Jaclyn B. Gaylis discuss their findings and implications for nutrition education for long term weight management of college students.IntroductionMaintaining healthy eating habits during college is challenging for most young adults. Studies have shown that college students gain an average of 3-10 lbs during their freshman year which makes it harder to maintain a healthy weight throughout adulthood. This weight-gain may be associated with a lack of variety in food choices, low fruit and vegetable intake, a diet high in refined carbohydrates, fat, soda and fast foods, as well as lower physical activity levels. Nutrition education during college is most important in order to educate college students on how to make healthy dietary and lifestyle choices which may impact their overall health and well-being. Nutrition majors not only have a strong foundation of knowledge on nutrition, food choices and diseases, but additionally on food preparation and exercise physiology.It is often assumed that nutrition majors have healthier dietary behaviors and lifestyles. However, the effectiveness of college nutrition courses on the habits of nutrition majors in correlation with student ’s Body Mass Index (BMI), food habits, snack choices and exercise patterns have not been well investi...
Source: The Nutrition Society - Category: Nutrition Authors: Source Type: news