Freshman girls are well aware of the benefits of eating healthy but lack the confidence or motivation to implement a healthy diet, according to a new study.
The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. The researchers noted that while most girls are aware that eating healthy will keep them in better health, they lack confidence in their ability to act on that knowledge, especially when it comes to getting enough calcium.
"The women in our study weren't very confident about their ability to eat a healthful diet, especially if they had to do something physical like chop vegetables or go shopping. The motivation just wasn't strong if they were at a party or in places where there were other fun choices," Illinois nutrition professor Karen Chapman-Novakofski said in a press statement. "Women optimize bone mass when they're about 18 years old, so we're talking about an important time for them to be consuming calcium."
The study included 268 female college freshmen enrolled in the U of I's Peer Education Exercising and Eating Right (PEER) program. All participants were asked to answer questionnaires which included queries that predicted their behavior while making difficult choices.
The researchers noted that while freshman girls refrained from choosing healthy food over fast food, women were open to choose low-fat foods, even if the choice seemed difficult to them. These findings were not surprising for the study authors.
"It's understandable because there are many more choices when it comes to low-fat foods, and women have developed strategies for dealing with high- versus low-fat choices. They can have chicken instead of ground beef or have a salad instead of a Reuben. There are fewer ways of including calcium-dense, even fortified, foods in your diet, so it's even more important to have a strategy for including dairy foods," co-author Leia Kedem said.
The findings were published online in the journal Behavior Modification. Funding was provided by USDA.
