Loneliness is associated with unhealthful dietary behaviors and physical inactivity among US college students

The Association of Loneliness with Diabetes Is Mediated by Physical Activity and BMI but Not Diet Quality

“…Higher scores for loneliness were associated with lower HEI scores and less time spent in leisure and moderate or vigorous physical activities. These results are consistent with other studies using younger samples [7,9]. When examining the combined effects of loneliness, diet quality, and physical activity on BMI, only activity was a significant and negative predictor.…”

“…There are other strong predictive relationships between loneliness and health conditions such as increased depression, impaired cognitive performance, and, with age, increased likelihood of nursing home admission [5,6]. Loneliness may also directly affect lifestyle behaviors [7][8][9][10][11]. For instance, data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing revealed loneliness was negatively associated with successful smoking cessation [12].…”

“…Data from the SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) project found that, in 9 European countries, highly socially isolated individuals were more likely to be physically inactive and, in 14 European countries, high social isolation increased the likelihood of having an inadequate diet, especially fruit and vegetable consumption [25]. Jiang and colleagues found loneliness was associated with both unhealthy dietary behaviors, reflected in low Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores, and physical inactivity among college students [7]. Loneliness was found to be associated with poor dietary habits and lower adherence to the Mediterranean diet in adolescents, in comparison to their counterparts with low perceived loneliness [9].…”

Impact of Social Support on Depressive Symptoms among Postgraduates during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

“…This extended the stress buffer model of depressive symptoms to some extent and analyzed the influence of proximal personality factors on depressive symptoms among graduate students. During the pandemic, college students who are highly neurotic are more likely to experience emotional imbalances and tend to use maladaptive emotion-centered coping styles [ 50 , 51 ]. One explanation for this is that people with high levels of neuroticism are more susceptible to psychological distress and irrational thoughts and are less able to control their impulses [ 66 ].…”

“…This is because people who are highly neurotic are more likely to have psychological distress and irrational thoughts and are less able to control their impulses. In addition, compared with active coping and low neuroticism, high neuroticism, and avoidance coping styles had adverse effects on the mental health of college students during the pandemic [ 51 ]. The relationship between personality traits and coping strategies suggests that highly neurotic individuals are at a greater risk of experiencing psychological distress because they often employ negative coping styles, such as avoidance coping.…”