Link Between Dietary Quality and Psychological Well Being

¶ … Diet on a University Student's Psychological Well-being

This article provides a research proposal for a study to be conducted on the impact of a diet on the psychological well-being of a university student. The paper proposes conducting an experiment on university students using Mediterranean diet as the basis of exploring the impact of diet on psychological well-being. The researcher demonstrates that there is evidence in existing literature regarding the impact of diet on psychological well-being, especially Mediterranean diet. The proposed independent variable for the study is Mediterranean diet while the dependent variables include physical and mental health, risk of depression, and cognitive decline. The researcher proposed conducting a cross-sectional study on students from the university's nursing department using a self-administered questionnaire. The data analyses will entail the use of SPSS statistical software and Chi-square tests. The final section of the paper discusses potential importance of findings if the hypotheses are supported or not supported.

Impact of Diet on a University Student's Psychological Well-being

Diet and eating habits have become issues of major concerns among university students with regards to their role as determinants of health status, particularly psychological well-being. This has become a major issue because of increased tendency by university students to demonstrate poor eating habits as they transition into university life. As a result of poor eating habits, university students are increasingly exposed and vulnerable to psychological distress and lack of time. The poor eating habits are characterized by failure to meet dietary requirements and rapid physical growth and psychosocial development changes that places university students as nutritionally vulnerable groups. In light of these factors, it is quite clear that our psychological well-being is strongly affected by what we eat. This study will conduct an experiment to explore the impact of Mediterranean diet on the psychological well-being of university students.

Pertinent Concepts to the Proposed Study

The main objective of this research is to examine the link between the overall psychological well-being and diet quality of a university student. One of the most pertinent concepts to the proposed study is the increased prevalence of poor eating habits among university students, which has developed to become a major public health concern. In essence, university students are regarded as vulnerable populations to poor eating habits that do not meet necessary diet requirements because of rapid changes in physical growth and psychosocial development (Ganasegeran et al., 2012, p.1). These poor eating habits among university students are attributable to environmental factors such as the prevalence of shopping malls, convenience stores, and fast food outlets.

The second important concept is the food choices of university students that are based on the availability and cost of fast food. In this case, university students lack vital knowledge on the role and significance of healthy food choices in nutritional status and eating habits. Therefore, examining the food choices of these individuals is crucial towards gaining insights on their understanding of healthy dietary habits and subsequent psychological well-being. The third pertinent concept relating to the study is how the failure to apply knowledge of health diet into daily food choices negatively influences these students by contributing to psychological distress.

Research Question

The research question for this study is, "Does a university student's diet have significant impact on his/her psychological well-being?" Mediterranean diet will be used as the basis for exploring the research question because it is relatively common among university students. The researcher will utilize Mediterranean diet because it contains nutritious and healthy elements as compared to the most common food choices i.e. fast foods.

Literature Review

As previously mentioned, the poor eating habits by university students have developed to become issues of major public health concern. This concern has contributed to numerous studies conducted to examine university student's eating habits and food choices in relation to various aspects including how they impact their health and psychological well-being. University students' eating habits has also been examined because of the increased prevalence of obesity among young adults, particularly this population.

Ganasegeran et al. (2012) conducted a study to examine the social and psychological factors influencing the eating habits of university students. In this study, the researchers state that university students are increasingly vulnerable to poor eating habits that fail to meet dietary requirements because of significant changes in physical growth and psychosocial development. They argue that these students make poor food choices and eating habits at a time when they are increasingly exposed to stress and lack of time. While they argue that the psychological distress of these students is attributable to transition into university life, the researchers postulate that there is a link between the poor eating habits and psychological distress. The psychological distress is brought by the impact of these poor eating habits and poor food choices on the physical health of the students. The psychological distress is reflected in meal skipping, snacking, and fast food consumption tendencies by the university students. This study found that social and psychological factors play a crucial role in determining eating habits among university students, which shows that nutritional education should be encouraged to promote the health and well-being of these students, particularly psychological well-being.

Caviness (2009) seemingly supports the Ganasegeran et al. (2012) by stating that the lack of some nutritional components in a diet affects the functioning of the brain and negatively impacts psychological well-being. Through examining the significance of nutrition for physical and cognitive well-being, Caviness (2009) postulates that the development and structural integrity of cell membranes that promote psychological well-being requires some nutritional components such as chlorine (p.10). When individuals consume foods that do not contain this component, their psychological well-being is negatively affected because of lack of necessary minerals and nutritional components to promote and support effective functioning of the brain. The researcher argues that nutrition plays a crucial role in the development of the mind and subsequent psychological well-being. Notably, the required nutritional minerals and components for effective functioning of the brain are obtained through proper diet, which implies that diet strongly influences psychological well-being.

Hebbert (2012) supports the findings by Caveness (2009) and Ganasegeran (2012) by stating that subscales of psychological well-being like emotional behavioral control, chronic stress, depression, and acute stress are linked to diet quality. The research argues that while the overall psychological well-being is not linked to diet, there are certain aspects and subscales of psychological well-being and stress that are related to food choices and successive diet quality (Hebbert, 2012, p.19). These aspects of psychological well-being are strongly influenced by diet quality with regards to compliance with dietary guidelines, relatively less control over eating behaviors, poor food choices, and poor eating habits. These findings were generated from a study that focused on examining the relationship between diet quality and psychological well-being and stress among young adult women.

According to Jacka (2014), university students who adopted a Mediterranean-style diet experienced better cognition as compared to those in controlled condition. These findings were based on a study examining the impact of healthy diet or foods on the physical and mental health of people. Mediterranean diet seemingly contributes to improved psychological well-being by protecting against dementia and cognitive deterioration because it is characterized by healthy and nutritious components.

Knight et al. (2015) supports the findings by Jacka (2014) by stating that studies on Mediterranean diet has demonstrated positive correlations between the diet and improved psychological well-being of elderly adults. These researchers argue that the diet results in enhanced cognitive outcomes among the elderly population such as decreased age-related cognitive deterioration and improved age-related cognitive performance. In addition to being inspired by conventional dietary patterns from several countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, and parts of the Middle East, the diet is characterized by increased intake of olive oil, fruit, nuts, fish, vegetables, and pulses.

Research Hypotheses

As previously mentioned, the research question under study is, "Does a university student's diet have significant impact on his/her psychological well-being?" The rationale for this research question is the evidence in existing literature that there is a strong link between diet and psychological well-being with regards to food choices and eating behaviors, particularly among university students. There are two hypotheses that will be tested when examining this research question as follows

Hypothesis 1: Mediterranean diet is good for physical and mental health of university students.

Hypothesis 2: Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of depression and cognitive decline among university students.

This study and hypotheses are important in order to gain insights on the relationship between diet quality and psychological well-being of university students with the aim of encouraging and promoting the development of healthy eating behaviors in universities.

Independent and Dependent Variables

The independent variable in this study is Mediterranean diet, which was selected because of increased evidence that it contributes to improved physical and mental health of people including university students. Actually, this diet has been proven to reduce cognitive decline, risk of dementia, and risk of depression. The dependent variables include improved physical and mental health as well as reduced risk of depression and cognitive deterioration. These outcomes are important variables in this study because they are directly linked to a person's psychological well-being. In this case, psychological well-being is understood as any aspect that improves mental health and addresses probable risk factors relating to cognition and mental well-being.

Research Method

Participants

The researcher will invite undergraduate students enrolled in second to fourth years of the degree course in nursing at the university with the goal of recruiting at least 200 research participants. These students will be invited to participate in the study from December 2015 to February 2016. In this case, the researcher will use various recruitment strategies including advertisements and flyers on the university's notice boards. The research participants will be required to be free of diet-related issues and freely consume their usual combined diets. Upon verifying willingness to participate in the study, the participants will be informed of the objectives of the study and the relevant research methodologies or processes.

Materials

The researcher intends to utilize cross-sectional study on these participants based on their intake of usual mixed diets. In this case, a self-administered food frequency questionnaire will be utilized to evaluate the dietary intake of these participants. Notably, the use of the cross-sectional study and questionnaire will be preceded by obtaining verbal informed consent from all research participants. The self-administered questionnaire for data collection will consists of at least 20 open and closed questions, which will be developed after conducting a literature review of health habits and eating patterns of university students. These questions will also be related to the socio-demographic background of the participants.

The questionnaire will also incorporate a brief food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), which covers different food categories and food items, to evaluate the usual dietary intake among university students. The FFQ comprises questions about the frequency of consuming vegetables, olive oil, fruits, meat, and fish as well as those regarding alcohol consumption, eating ready meals and fast-foods, smoking habits, and intake of sugary food items and products. This questionnaire will also incorporate questions regarding food preparation and the location and frequency of taking breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The final section in the questionnaire will include questions regarding the participant's health during the past year, especially mental health with reference to cognitive decline and risk of depression.

Procedure

As previously mentioned, the researcher will conduct a cross-sectional study on research participants relating to dietary intake and psychological well-being. The cross-sectional study will be conducted on the university's nursing department students because random selection of participants is relatively difficult because of administrative difficulties. These administrative challenges would make it difficult to select a convenient sample of students for the research. Moreover, the nursing department provides a good basis for selecting a representative sample for the study because of their knowledge and competence regarding health issues, which makes it easier for the participants to effectively report physical and mental health changes resulting from the dietary intake. Once study participants are selected through verbal informed consent and study findings explained to them, the questionnaire will be administered to them. They will be required to fill these questionnaires and submit them to the researcher within a week. The researcher will then conduct data analysis, which will help in providing research findings.