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BUSY LIFE AND NUTRITION HABITS

Does Having a Busy Life Affect Nutrition Habits

Tiffany Hartley, Jessica Larsson, and Paige Perry

Department of Home & Family, Brigham Young University-Idaho

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BUSY LIFE AND NUTRITION HABITS

Abstract

This study focused on nutritional eating in college students and the factors that may

influence that. The hypothesis focused on the idea that having a busy life in college and low

cooking confidence would lead to poor nutritional eating. College students from Brigham Young

University- Idaho were surveyed about aspects such as their eating habits, hours worked in a

week, credits currently enrolled in and cooking confidence. The results showed no significance

between how busy their life is and their eating habits. Instead, age, marital status and cooking

confidence were found to be significantly correlated.

Key Words: Nutrition, Healthy, College, Student

Does Having a Busy Life Affect Our Nutrition Habits

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College is a time where young adults are leaving home and living on their own. They

spend several hours a week at school. Many have jobs leaving little time to take care of their

nutritional needs. Many lack the confidence to cook leading to skipping meals and other unwise

meal choices. This can have negative effects on their overall health (Zahra et al., 2014). Previous

research has shown that busy work lives can lead to poor eating habits (Tanka et al., 2008;

Lemaire, et al., 2010; Lemaire et al., 2011). In this study we will explore the potential

relationship between the busy life of college students and their eating habits. College students

will be surveyed and asked about how having a busy life can influence their eating habits.

Eating Unhealthy

When people eat unhealthy food, they fail to take care of their bodies and negative effects

can arise. “What one consumes and how one eats at work can affect physical health, well-being,

and work performance” (Clohessy et al., 2019, p. 1772). Unhealthy eating can be due to

consuming junk foods. This has been linked to poor mental and physical health (Zahra et al.,

2014). Healthy eating is about making sure your body gets the nutrients it needs.

Skipping Meals

An important part of a healthy diet is actually consuming foods. When meals are skipped

the body is deprived of the opportunity to receive nutrients. Some effects of meal skipping are

impaired cognitive function, poor problem-solving skills (Pollitt et al., 1982), fatigue (Tanaka et

al., 2008) and an increased risk of depression or stress (Lee et al., 2017). These effects of meal

skipping are likely due to inadequate nutritional status (Tanaka et al., 2008).

Effects of a Busy Life

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A factor that plays into poor nutrition is having a busy life. Multiple studies have looked

into busy workdays and eating habits (Tanka et al., 2008; Lemaire, et al., 2010; Lemaire et al.,

2011). These studies show the effects poor nutrition can have on people’s lives. Participants were

often too busy to stop and eat, often skipping meals leading to fatigue. Researchers found that

people who showed signs of fatigue were associated with poor academic performance, poor

attendance, a negative attitude towards school and learning, and poor understanding (Tanaka et

al., 2008). 

Hypotheses

Our lives are constantly speeding up. New responsibilities are added to busy lives which

can affect eating. Not eating nutritionally has an effect on our overall health and can lead to poor

nutrition habits. With school and other potential obligations college students often live a busy

life. Studies have shown that those with a full schedule are not getting the nutrition they need

(Tanka et al., 2008, Lemaire et al., 2010; Lemaire et al., 2011). We seek to understand if this can

be applied more broadly to college students. College students are often living on their own for

the first time, and potentially lack the confidence to cook healthy meals for themselves. As a

result, this could lead to skipping meals or eating out more frequently. In this study we seek to

understand the cause of college student’s poor nutrition. Thus, we hypothesize: (1) Having a

busy life in college causes people to skip more meals. (2) Having a busy life in college causes

people to eat out more. (3) Having a busy life in college causes people to eat more ready-to-eat

meals. (4) Students who don’t feel comfortable cooking are more likely to eat more ready-to-eat

meals. (5) Students who don’t feel comfortable cooking are more likely to skip meals. (6)

Students who don’t feel comfortable cooking are more likely to eat out more.

Methods
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Sample

The study population will consist of all the students from Brigham Young University-

Idaho. Three hundred of these students were randomly selected using a simple random sampling

approach. Around 50 students completed the survey. To increase the number of respondents

researchers asked random students to complete the survey. This resulted in 103 responses. The

sample consisted of 34 males and 69 females. It also consisted of 32 married students and 71

non-married students. The sample consisted of 41 students ages 18-21, 34 students ages 22-25, 8

students ages 26-29, 7 students ages 30-40 and 13 students ages 41-60.

Procedures

Participants were sent an email asking them to complete a survey. Participants were told

that the survey would seek to explore how nutritious college students eat and how busy they are.

Before participants began, they saw a consent statement. The consent statement included

informing the participants about who conducted the survey, informing that participation is

voluntary and that there will be no individual identification of participants. They were also told

that completion of the survey implies consent. All data was collected through participant answers

to the survey. 

Measurement

Demographics

Knowing who you are studying is an important part of research. For this study it will be

relevant to understand participant age, gender and relationship status.

Busy Life

Having a busy life in this study is defined by having a significant amount of college

credit or working many hours a week. In the survey, participants were asked different questions
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about how busy their lives are. They were asked questions such as how many hours they work in

a typical week, how many credits they are taking and what year they are in school. 

Nutrition

Poor nutrition for the purpose of this study will be defined as skipping meals, eating

ready-to-eat meals (ramen, macaroni, or frozen foods) and eating out from an establishment that

cooks the meal for you. Whether a student eats healthy will be determined through how often

participants eat a well-balanced meal, include fruits and vegetables in a meal, and eat home

cooked meals. Participants will indicate the frequency of eating different types of meals using a

response scale that ranges from never to several times a day. Some of the questions included,

“How often do you skip meals?”, “How many times a week do you prepare meals for yourself?”,

“How often do you include vegetables in your meals?”, and “How often do you feel you eat a

well-balanced or nutritious meal?”.

Cooking Confidence

Another aspect of focus will be if participants are confident in their own cooking skills.

Since poor nutrition for the purpose of this study is defined by the types of meals participants eat

it will be helpful to understand if this could be due to an underlying factor of low cooking

confidence. Participants will indicate their confidence on a scale of not confident at all to

extremely confident.

Face Validity

To establish face validity multiple people were asked to look over the questionnaire

before it was sent to participants. They were asked to identify if they felt the questions

adequately gauge nutritious eating and a busy life. Some suggestions were made in regard to
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grammatical errors, but all agreed that the questionnaire asked questions to appropriately

understand nutritional eating and busy life.

Results

While looking at the results of our surveys, some hypotheses had a strong correlation

while others did not. The main hypotheses about having a busy life and nutrition habits do not

have a strong correlation. Responses that involved work and credit were combined together and

looked at against questions regarding eating habits (Figure 1). Hypothesis 1: Having a busy life

in college causes people to skip more meals, findings were not significant (p=.803). Hypothesis

2: Having a busy life in college causes people to eat out more, findings were not significant

(p=.200). Hypothesis 3: Having a busy life in college causes people to eat more ready-to-eat

meals, findings were also not significant (p=.761). None of the items had a significant correlation

besides feeling like you don’t have time to complete all your tasks in the day and having a busy

life (p=.039).
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The other hypothesis dealt with comfort level in cooking and how nutritiously they eat.

The results for this section showed several strong correlations. A comparison chart was created

that looked at how confident they were at cooking and how much they liked cooking compared

to nutrition habits (Figure 2). Hypothesis 4: Students who don’t feel comfortable cooking are

more likely to eat more ready-to-eat meals, which has a significant negative correlation (p=.000,

r= -0.430). Hypothesis 5: Students who don’t feel comfortable cooking are more likely to skip

meals (p=.263, r= -0.111). This test has a very weak correlation between the two variables.

Hypothesis 6: Students who don’t feel comfortable cooking are more likely to eat out more

(p=.082, r= -0.172). This finding has a strong negative correlation.

While the hypotheses didn’t all have strong correlations, it was found that a

person’sconfidence does correlate with other variables such as preparing home cooked meals

(p=.000, r=.434), feeling like you eat a well-balanced meal (p=.000, r=.361), including fruits and

vegetables in your diet (p=.002, r=.301), and feeling too busy to eat nutritiously (p=.006, r=

-.271). Cooking enjoyment also strongly correlated on many variables (Figure 2).
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It was also found that age has a strong correlation to eating nutritionally (Figure 3). Age

correlates negatively with eating ready-to-eat meals (p=.001, r= -.332), while it correlates

positively with preparing home cooked meals (p=.006, r= .270), having someone else prepare a

home cooked meal for you (p=.043, r=.199), feeling like you are eating a well-balanced meal

(p=.002, r=.305), and confidence in cooking (p=.007, r=.266)

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Marital status was also found to have a significant correlation to nutritional eating.

Married students were found to be more likely to feel like they eat nutritionally (p=.009, married

mean= 4.09, non-married mean= 3.39) and less likely to eat ready-to-eat meals (p=.005, married

mean= 2.22, non-married mean 2.83).

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Discussion

The main findings of this study are that age, marital status, cooking confidence and

cooking enjoyment are correlated with nutritious eating habits. The main hypothesis about the

relationship between a student’s busy life and their eating habits was not supported. The findings

suggest there are factors that correlate with the students’ nutrition, but it was not how busy they

are. An interesting finding was that there were no significant differences in any analysis between

males and females.

The most unexpected find was that age and marital status were significant indicators of

eating habits. The older a student is, the more likely they are to eat a home cooked meal made by

themselves or another, they are more likely to say they feel they eat nutritious meals and the less

likely they are to eat ready-to-eat meals. Similarly, when comparing married and unmarried

students the married students were more likely to say they feel they eat nutritious meals and less

likely to eat ready-to-eat meals. These findings help show that as a student gets older as well as

marry, they seem to be making choices that help them to eat more nutritious meals.

Cooking confidence was found to be a strong predictor for how nutritious a student is

eating. It makes sense that if a student feels confident cooking as well as enjoys cooking that

they are more likely to cook for themselves and eat vegetables. They are also less likely to eat

ready-to-eat and fast-food type meals as well as feel they are eating nutritious meals. An

interesting finding is that those who enjoy cooking are the least likely to feel too busy to eat

nutritiously.

Limitations

A main limitation for this came from only studying college students. In this study only

college students were questioned. The hypotheses for this study were based on the premise that
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within those going to college separate groups would be identifiable based on varying levels of

nutritional habits correlated to how busy they are. This was not the case. Without a comparison

group of non-students our findings have limited applicability. A comparison group on non-

students would help to show if being in college does affect eating habits when compared to those

not in college. Since all our participants were students, we can only say that between groups of

students, busyness was not a factor for eating habits. A comparison group would also help to

show if age and marital status affect eating in a wider population.

All the participants attend Brigham Young University- Idaho which is owned by The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the majority of the students at the school are

members of this church. Marriage and family is very important to many members of this church.

This level of importance could impact how often students eat with their spouse or family to

connect over a meal. Prioritizing eating together could be leading to an increase in how often

students eat a home cooked meal. This could mean these findings are limited to just students at

this particular school. Further research would need to be conducted to understand if these

findings are more broadly applicable.

Future Research

Future research should be done to understand if these findings are exclusive to Brigham

Young University- Idaho students, or if they have broader implications. A comparison group of

non-students should be added. This would help to understand if being a student does affect eating

habits when compared to those of a similar age who are not in school. Future research should

focus on the relationship age and marital status have to eating habits. Questions should be asked

to understand if age is the primary factor or if marital status alone makes a difference.
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Conclusion

In this study we found that there are factors that predict if a student is eating nutritiously.

Knowing what causes students to not eat as well can help inform ways to help students eat better.

The original hypothesis assumed that busyness would be a significant factor, this was not the

case. Instead factors like cooking enjoyment and confidence were significant. This is something

that can be changed. It would be harder to help students find time to cook, instead students likely

need help seeing that cooking for themselves can be simple and enjoyable. It was also found that

as students get older and marry, they are more likely to eat well, there are likely many reasons

for this, but this finding indicates that perhaps little action needs to be taken and that naturally

students will eat better over time. Further research would have to be done to see if teaching

students to cook could help students eat better at younger ages.

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References

Clohessy, S., Walasek, L., & Meyer, C. (2019). Factors influencing employees' eating

behaviours in the office‐based workplace: A systematic review. Obesity Reviews, 20(12),

1771-1780. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12920

Lee, G., Han, K., & Kim, H. (2017). Risk of mental health problems in adolescents skipping

meals: The korean national health and nutrition examination survey 2010 to 2012. Nursing

Outlook, 65(4), 411-419. 10.1016/j.outlook.2017.01.007

Lemaire, J. B., Wallace, J. E., Dinsmore, K., Lewin, A. M., Ghali, W. A., & Roberts, D. (2010).

Physician nutrition and cognition during work hours: Effect of a nutrition based

intervention. BMC Health Services Research, 1010.1186/1472-6963-10-241

Lemaire, J. B., Wallace, J. E., Dinsmore, K., & Roberts, D. (2011). Food for thought: An

exploratory study of how physicians experience poor workplace nutrition. Nutrition

Journal, 10(1), 343. 10.1186/1475-2891-10-18

Pollitt, E., Lewis, N. L., Garza, C., & Shulman, R. J. (1982). Fasting and cognitive function.

Journal of Psychiatric Research, 17(2), 169-174. 10.1016/0022-3956(82)90018-8

Tanaka, M., Mizuno, K., Fukuda, S., Shigihara, Y., & Watanabe, Y. (2008). Relationships

between dietary habits and the prevalence of fatigue in medical students. Nutrition, 24(10),

985-989. 10.1016/j.nut.2008.05.003
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BUSY LIFE AND NUTRITION HABITS
Zahra, J., Ford, T., & Jodrell, D. (2014). Cross-sectional survey of daily junk food consumption,

irregular eating, mental and physical health and parenting style of british secondary school

children. Child: Care, Health & Development, 40(4), 481-491. 10.1111/cch.12068

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Appendix

Thank you so much for taking the time to complete our survey. This survey is being conducted
by students in CHILD 400- research methods. We are interested in better understanding the
nutritional habits of college students. This short survey should take 2-4 minutes to complete.
Participation in this survey is voluntary. Your identity will not be linked to your responses. If you
have any questions please email us at har18057@byui.edu. Completion of this survey implies
your consent to participate in this study. 

What is your gender?

1. Male (1)
2. Female (2)
3. Other (3) ________________________________________________

What is your relationship status?

4. Single, not dating (1)
5. Single, going on dates with multiple people (2)
6. Single, dating one person exclusively (3)
7. Single, engaged (4)
8. Married (5)
9. Married, with children (6)
10. Divorced (7)
11. Other (8) ________________________________________________

Use the slider to answer the question below

0 14 29 43 57 71 86 100

What is your age in years? ()

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BUSY LIFE AND NUTRITION HABITS

What year are you in college?

12. Freshman (1)
13. Sophomore (2)
14. Junior (3)
15. Senior (4)

Use the slider to answer the question below

0 4 7 11 14 18 21 25

How many college credits are you currently

enrolled in? ()

Use the slider to answer the question below

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

On average, how many hours a week do you work

for pay? ()
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BUSY LIFE AND NUTRITION HABITS
Several Several
A few times
Never (1) Rarely (2) times a week Daily (5) times a day
a week (3)
(4) (6)
How often do
you skip a 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.
meal? (1)
How often do
you eat
ready-to-eat
type meals
such as 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.
ramen,
macaroni, or
frozen
meals? (10)
How often do
you get food
from
somewhere
that
prepares it
for you such 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.
as a fast food
or other type
of
restaurant?
(9)
How many
times a week
do you
prepare a 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.
home cooked
meal for
yourself? (8)
How many
times a week
does
someone
else prepare 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.
a home
cooked meal
for you? (5)
How often do
you feel you
eat a well-
balanced or 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.
nutritious
meal? (6)
How often do
you include
fresh fruits
and 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.
vegetables in
your meals?
(7)
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How confident are you in cooking meals for yourself?

58. Not confident at all (1)
59. Mildly confident (2)
60. Confident (3)
61. Extremely confident (4)

How much do you enjoy preparing meals for yourself?

62. None at all (1)
63. A little (2)
64. A moderate amount (3)
65. A lot (4)
66. A great deal (5)

How often do you feel too busy to eat nutritiously?

67. Never (1)
68. Rarely (2)
69. Some of the time (3)
70. Often (4)
71. Very often (5)
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How frequently do you feel that you have more tasks in a day than time to complete those
tasks?
72. Never (1)
73. 1-2 days a week (2)
74. 3-4 days a week (3)
75. 5-6 days a week (4)
76. Everyday (5)

End of Block: Default Question Block