Eating habits and attitudes in college students related to the Swedish food agency national dietary guidelines

The study was a quantitative cross-sectional study which aimed at investigating college students’ eating habits in relation to the Swedish food agency dietary recommendations. The likely factors associated with eating habits and attitudes towards dietary recommendations were also investigated. Non probability sampling method was used giving rise to convinient study sample of 51 individuals (41 women and 11 men) ages 19 to 37. The participants were part of four different types of educations, Care and health, Economy, Engineering, computering and societal planning and Culture and media. About 82% were familiar with at least one of the Swedish food agency dietary recommendations. Although none of the respondents ate completely according to the dietary guidelines, most ate according to one or several of the guidelines. Factors such as age and gender were associated to eating habits although they did not reach statistic significance. About 23, 5% of those familiar with the recommendations have a negative attitude towards them compared to 55% with positive attitude. 12% of the participants claim to have tried eating healthier in the past but failed. The discussion deals with possible implications of these findings for future intervention, the strengths and weaknesses of the study are also discussed