Psychosocial determinants of fruit and vegetable consumption among students in a New Zealand university. Results of focus group interviews

Identifying perceived barriers and enablers of healthy eating in college students in Hawai’i: a qualitative study using focus groups

“…Knowledge served as both a key barrier and key enabler on the individual level. This finding is in concordance with previous studies that have identified knowledge as an enabler of healthy eating in college students [11,17]. To address the lack of knowledge some students described, one possibility is offering a health class to improve nutrition education.…”

“…To design effective nutrition education interventions for college students, research is needed to determine the factors influencing college students' food choices. Previous research studies using focus groups have identified several determinants of eating behaviors in college students, such as taste preference, availability and accessibility of foods, cost, and other college life factors such as the characteristics of the university, student societies, and exams [8][9][10][11]. Several of these studies have referenced the socio-ecological model, which identifies influences at the individual, social environmental, physical environmental, and macrosystem levels and is used in health promotion to better understand not only the individual but the unique environment in which he/she lives [12].…”

Factors associated with fruit and vegetable and total fat intake in university students: A cross‐sectional explanatory study

“…Univariate regression analyses showed that only perceived individual barriers (lack of time, lack of self‐discipline, temptation of other foods, lack of interest, tastiness, variation, lack of knowledge, lack of preparation skills) was negatively associated with F&V consumption. Although literature has pointed out the importance of environmental influence on eating behaviours, in this study, social (norm, support, modelling) and physical environmental barriers (including price, availability and accessibility and advertisement and promotions) did not correlate significantly with F&V or with fat intake. Perceived behavioural control was positively related to F&V intake in the multivariate regression model.…”

“…Previous studies assessing determinants of eating behaviour in this population found that social norms, support and models increased motivation to make healthy choices. 29,31,32 Moreover, focus group discussions conducted by Hartman et al 40 pointed out that flatmates and partners had the greatest social influence on university students. No relationship between social factors and fat intake was found.…”

Consumer acceptance of intervention strategies for healthy food choices

“…Additionally, food choice experiments have shown that the economic environment heavily influences food choices (Epstein et al, 2010;Giesen et al, 2012). This is in line with research based on interviews and focus groups, where costs of foods and beverages are often mentioned as barriers and triggers for consumption (Dressler & Smith, 2013;Hartman, Wadsworth, Penny, Van Assema, & Page, 2013). Lastly, the association between the media environment and food choices has often been suggested in scientific literature, mostly by linking advertising for unhealthy foods to obesity (Lobstein & Dibb, 2005;Neumark-Sztainer et al, 1999).…”