Environment and Barriers: Predicting College Students’ Self-Efficacy and Healthy-Eater Identity
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Authors
Escobar, Katrina E.
Issue Date
2025-04-01
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
College students , Diet--Fruit and vegetable consumption , Diet--Healthy-eater identity , Self-efficacy
Alternative Title
Abstract
Consuming the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables results in beneficial health effects, whereas, failing to meet recommendations can result in copious health risks. College students lack recommended fruit and vegetable intake. Recognizing perceived barriers in the college environment may help to understand this lack of fruit and vegetable consumption.
Perceived barriers include lack of time, high cost of healthy food, and limited availability of healthy food. Identifying how perceived barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption impacts self-efficacy, or one’s confidence to perform a behavior, and healthy-eater identity, or how people perceive their eating behavior, can facilitate understanding of fruit and vegetable consumption among college students. Dietary preference may also influence eating behavior and attitudes.
Due to evidence linking healthy-eater identity and self-efficacy to consuming fruits and vegetables, it is reasonable to wonder what factors may influence identity and self-efficacy. The current study found lower barriers associated with higher self-efficacy. There was no relationship between barriers and healthy-eater identity. The relationship between dietary preference and healthy-eater identity was not able to be evaluated. This study further supports the need to reduce barriers to increase self-efficacy for healthy eating among college students.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Washburn University