Motives underlying food choice: an investigation of dental students

In pursuit of a more 'holistic' dentistry and an increasing focus on promoting oral health, dental students are increasingly being trained to take a more active part in health promotion and education. In particular, this incorporates an emphasis on diet and educating people to eat in more healthy ways. Research in this area has shown that an understanding of the motives underlying food choice is essential to this task. Such motives have been found to differ between different social groupings. To date, however, no studies have been conducted on the food choice motivations of dental students themselves. This paper works from the premise that if dental students are to engage in oral health promotion, they will do so more effectively if they have first explored their own food choice motivations and investigated how they may differ from other members of society. The Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ) was distributed to a comparative st th group of 1 and 5 year dental students in timetabled lecture slots. Out of a possible 177 students there were 130 (77%) respondents. Findings were analyzed using independent sample t-test. Results indicated statistically significant differences in terms of food choice motivations between: first and fifth year students; male and female students; students from different ethnic backgrounds; and students living in different types of accommodation. No differences were found between students from different social class groups (but this may be explained by the low proportion of students in this sample from social class groups 3-5). Awareness and an understanding of the differences in motivational factors affecting food choice between dental students is important as they are increasingly taught to play an active role in oral health promotion. If dental students are to partake meaningfully in such a role, it is necessary for them to be aware not only of their own motives in food selection, but also of the way in which those motives may differ amongst different socio-demographic groupings