Eating behavior of university students during social isolation

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the food of university students during social isolation, in order to understand their relationship with food during this period. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional observational study, in which undergraduate students at the Federal University of Pelotas were evaluated by means of an electronic questionnaire, from July to October 2021. The questionnaire was divided into two parts, evaluating the profile of students and eating behavior. As a tool, the questionnaire “The three factor eating questionnaire - R21” (TFEQ-R21) was used, which scores the 3 domains of eating behavior on a scale from 0 to 100. Data were automatically forwarded to an Excel® spreadsheet generated by Google Forms. A descriptive analysis of the variables ​​gender, age group, origin, area of ​​knowledge and graduation semester was presented through means with their respective standard deviations. Results: The study sample consisted of 397 university students, most of them women (78.59%) between 18 and 30 years old (87.66%), coming from the south and southeast regions (96.73%). Among the areas of knowledge and current semester, 47.86% were in the health area and 64.99% were between the first and sixth semester of graduation. There is a smaller relationship only between emotional nutrition and sex, showing that women have higher scores for this domain. Conclusion: Most responses were from women, with a reduction focused on emotional eating. The reflexes of emotional eating on food intake result in compensatory effects, making food choices not conscious.