Transitioning to a recent environment, as many college freshman do, can increase feelings of loneliness, and feelings of loneliness in college students have dramatically increased within the last decade, in accordance with the National College Health Assessment. Moreover, a 2021 survey reported that 44% of U.S. college students described their weight as greater than normal, i.e. either within the chubby or obese category. Though loneliness has been linked to unhealthy weight and physical inactivity, there may be a scarcity of research on dietary behaviors in college students and the role it will probably play in obesity in college students.

With data from the Mason: Health Starts Here cohort study, Master of Nutrition alum Li Jiang found that loneliness was related to altered food regimen quality and physical inactivity. The research was done as a part of Jiang’s master’s thesis, and Mason Nutrition and Food Studies Department Chair Lawrence J. Cheskin, Associate Professor Lilian de Jonge, former faculty member Cara Frankenfeld, and former postdoctoral fellow Ziaul H. Rana also contributed to the project.

“Our study supports a possible need for further research in understanding unhealthful dietary behavior and physical activity which could also be related to loneliness, an emotion that impacts many college students,” says Jiang.

Sedentary (19.2%) and low lively (53.8%) behaviors were more frequent in students reporting high loneliness (rating ranges of 4–6 and seven–9) than those reporting low loneliness (rating of 10-12). Students reporting more loneliness had higher fat diets than students reporting less loneliness.

Interventions to scale back loneliness can have a positive effect on health promotion on this population. This data associate with other initial findings from the Health Starts Here study that college students usually are not meeting healthy dietary guidelines or getting enough physical activity.”

Lawrence J. Cheskin, MD, Mason Nutrition and Food Studies Department Chair

The study is a cross-sectional study that analyzed baseline data collected in the primary wave of Mason: Health Start Here in 2019, and was funded by George Mason University’s Institute for BioHealth Innovation.

Source:

Journal reference:

Jiang, L., et al. (2022) Loneliness is related to unhealthful dietary behaviors and physical inactivity amongst US college students. Journal of American College Health. doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2022.2141060.