Eating attitudes and barriers to healthy eating and physical activity among a sample of university students in Egypt

Abstract

Background: More students are concerned about their body shape and have a desire to have a lower BMI. As a consequence, many of them have disordered eating attitudes (DEAs) and engage themselves in unhealthy weight control behaviors. Aim: To measure the frequency of DEAs among Ain Shams University students and to identify the barriers to healthy eating and physical activity among them. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was done on a sample of 445 students in Ain Shams University from different faculties using a self-reported questionnaire. The weight and height were measured and the BMI was calculated. The eating attitudes were measured using the Eating Attitudes Test-26 questionnaire. Results: The students' age ranged between 17 and 26 years with a mean of 20.3±1.5 years, 40.7% of them were men and 59.3% women. The majority of students (50.8%) had normal BMI, and about 39% were overweight and obese. The frequency of DEAs was 73.3%. There was no significant relation between the presence of DEAs and personal data of students such as age, sex, faculty, and BMI. Lack of time was the most highlighted barrier to both physical activity and healthy eating. Conclusion: There was a high prevalence rate of obesity and DEA that necessitates a lot of efforts to help the youth control their body weights and correct unhealthy behaviors by overcoming barriers against healthy behaviors.

Motives and Barriers for Regular Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans (South-East Europe Region)

“…Barriers could be defined as objective or subjective reasons that can prevent a person from completing a defined task and are tended to be more similar among different age groups [ 18 ]. Some of the most common barriers for adults are a lack of free time and a bad financial situation [ 16 , 18 , 19 ]. When it comes to the student population, similarly, one of the most frequent barriers toward having regular PA is lack of time, due to faculty obligations, as well as a lack of money to pay for memberships to fitness centers [ 16 , 18 , 19 ].…”

“…Some of the most common barriers for adults are a lack of free time and a bad financial situation [ 16 , 18 , 19 ]. When it comes to the student population, similarly, one of the most frequent barriers toward having regular PA is lack of time, due to faculty obligations, as well as a lack of money to pay for memberships to fitness centers [ 16 , 18 , 19 ].…”

“…Given the importance of various factors and the role they play in an individual’s motivation to engage in and maintain regular PA, it is essential to understand how motivators and barriers influence PA, in such a complex and multidimensional environment [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Understanding the relationship between personal, environmental, and behavioral factors, with specific activity-related factors, is crucial for developing appropriate programs and interventions, in order to increase PA [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”

Participation in Physical Activity and Social Media Addiction in Students

“…This finding pointed out that individuals paid more attention to their physiological and psychological status than the physical image to be reflected others. Even if studies conducted underlined that external factors are more important in physical activity participation (Asma and Gencer, 2019;Esatbeyoğlu & Karahan, 2014;Gümüş et al, 2017;Payan et al, 2019;El-Bagoury et al, 2017); it was found that individual and personal factors are more important for the students (Guler & Turkmen, 2018) who studied sports sciences; which -we think-may have resulted from their knowledge level about physical activity acquired at their academic departments. The relevant studies reported that as people's knowledge level about physical activity, exercise, and training increases, so does their participation in physical activities (Hanna et al, 2017;Ross & Melzer, 2016;Chen et al, 2017;Santiago et al, 2016).…”

Correlation between participation in physical activity and healthy nutrition: An example of a sports science faculty

“…Arslan et al [15] found that male students studying at university have higher levels of participation in physical activity than female students. When the literature is examined, there are studies showing that male and female participants have higher participation in physical activity, and female participants have higher nutritional behaviors than male participants [16][17][18][19][20].…”