Objective: To characterize college students' beliefs and practices regarding weight management.
Design: Cross-sectional self-administered anonymous questionnaire of college students enrolled at a midwestern university.
Methods: The 30-item questionnaire was administered to all 672 students enrolled in the six sections of a required core curriculum life sciences class for undergraduate students during the spring 2005 semester.
Results: A total of 653 students completed the questionnaire, providing a 97.2% response rate. The percentage of college students classified as overweight or obese in this study was significantly higher (38.5%) than the national Healthy Campus 2010 target goal (16%). Slightly more than one-half of students had attempted to lose weight (53.3%) or maintain weight (57.7%) in the past year; with less than one in eight students (11.8%) having tried to gain weight in the last year. Females were more than twice as likely as males to attempt to lose weight (66.2% to 32.8%) and 1.5 times as likely to attempt to maintain weight (65.2% to 46.6%); while males were 5 times as likely as females to try to gain weight in the last year (25.1% to 4.1%). While getting more physical activity and reducing daily caloric intake were the most reported methods employed for weight loss and weight maintenance, odds ratios and stepwise logistic regression analysis showed that a number of unsafe methods were significantly associated with trying to lose weight or maintain weight (e.g., skipping meals, dietary weight-loss supplements, low carbohydrate diet, smoking cigarettes). Furthermore a significant number of students believed these methods were safe and effective. Finally, students were much more likely to get their information on weight management from friends, the internet, television, and magazines than from campus resources or health care professionals.
Conclusions: The goals of healthy weight loss, weight maintenance, and weight gain are most effectively promoted by helping individuals learn to equalize energy consumed and energy used. Young adulthood, especially during the college years can be a vulnerable time to develop or continue unhealthy weight management behaviors. The results from this study confirm the need for increased campus-wide educational messages and programs from various campus resources to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and resources to manage their weight in a healthy manner.