Back to Basics: Tracing Health and Risk Behaviors Back to Well-Being

Abstract

College students typically fall short of public health guidelines for healthy diet and physical ac-tivity, and a significant percentage engage in binge drinking and marijuana use. The main objective ofthis study was to examine the association between overall well-being and these health and risk behaviors.Students (n=363) completed online questionnaires measuring well-being (basic psychological needs, eu-daimonic well-being, subjective vitality, and intrinsic and extrinsic life aspirations), diet, physical activity,and substance use.Within a structural equation modeling framework, the model fit the data, x2(n=334,241)=504.65, p<.001, CFI=.96, TLI=.95, RMSEA=.057, CI90 [.05-.06]. Basic psychological needswas significantly related to intrinsic life aspirations (β=.50), extrinsic life aspirations (β=.42), subjectivevitality (β=.53), alcohol use (β=.21), diet (β=.36), and physical activity (β=.20). To a lesser extent,eudaimoniawas associated with allpreviously mentioned variablesbesides alcohol use.These results suggestthat interventions targeting college students may need to consider the motivational influence of generalwell-being underlying health and risk behaviors.