Dietary Patterns of University Students in Jordan: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: University students might have poor diet quality. The aim of this study is to identify the dietary patterns of university students and assess their association with different socio-demographic, anthropometric and lifestyle factors. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was conducted on students attending the University of Jordan, in a time period between September and November 2019. METHODS: A total of 664 students (469 females and 195 males aged between 17-30 years with a mean age (SD) of 19.7± 1.8), were included in this study. Data was collected using a survey consistent of two parts; socio-demographic, lifestyle, eating habits questions and a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). The FFQ consisted of 55 food items/subgroups, and was specifically designed for this study. Body weight and height were measured by a trained dietitian. Principle component analysis was used to generate the dietary patterns. Associations between dietary patterns with different variables were measured through general linear modelling.RESULTS: Three main dietary patterns were identified: ‘snacking’, ‘healthy’ and ‘accessible’. Mean factor scores of the snacking pattern increased with less healthy aspects such as obesity or being underweight, smoking and being physically inactive. While factor scores for the healthy pattern increased with healthier aspects such as physically activity, having three or more meals per day and considering breakfast as the main meal of the day, and this pattern was largely followed by male students. Finally, the accessible pattern had higher scores for students living with their family and having three or more meals per day. CONCLUSION: The results of this study provide an understanding to the dietary patterns of university students along with related factors (socio-demographic, lifestyle, eating habits). It has identified a number of precursors of both healthy and unhealthy dietary practices. These finding are important for the conceptualization of multi behavioral programs and public health interventions.

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“…Smoking is more accepted culturally in Jordan since this behavior is affected by practice and surroundings [ 56 ]. The same trend regarding physical activity, where male students were significantly more active than females, which is consistent with reports by Barghouti et al [ 57 ] and Sbaih et al [ 58 ], where male students have no social restrictions and have the ability to carry out outdoor activities; in addition to that, they are more interested in getting fit than females. Although the vast majority of the participants consumed the recommended number of servings of red meat, fat, and processed meat, female participants significantly consumed more red meat, which is contrary to what was found by Orman et al [ 26 ], who reported that male participants consumed more red processed meat and vegetables, vegetables, and processed meat preparation is an easy way to snack at home.…”