Abstract
Background: Healthy eating is essential for individuals’ physical as well as psychological wellbeing. Women’s focus on achieving thin ideal physique and men’s aspiration for muscular body is likely to impact their food intake and consequently Nutritional Quality of Life (NQoL). Moreover, NQoL varies across different age groups owing to the varying nutritional needs with increasing age. Investigating NQoL across gender and age has useful implications for health counseling and practice. Objectives| To investigate differences in nutritional quality of life among gender and different age groups. To investigate gender and age group differences in knowledge of nutritional value of food. Methodology| A descriptive cross-sectional research was conducted. The sample consisted of 200 participants i.e., 100 younger adults between age range of 18-23 years and 100 older adults between age range of 40-60 years. Gender of participants was equally represented in both age groups. Nutritional Quality of Life (NQoL) Instrument and a self-developed Nutritional Knowledge Questionnaire were administered on the sample to collect data. Results| Mean age of younger adults was 19.17 ± 1.18 and for older adults it was 48.17 ± 5.20. Findings showed that women scored significantly higher on psychological factor and social impact whereas men scored significantly higher on food impact and self-efficacy impact of NQoL. Moreover younger adults scored higher on self-efficacy than older adults and older adults scored higher on food impact, social impact, psychological factor and physical functioning than younger adults. Also interaction of gender and age was significant regarding knowledge of nutritional value of food; older women and younger men had more knowledge of nutritional value of food than younger women and older men. Conclusions| There were significant differences in nutritional quality of life. Also knowledge of nutritional value of food varied across gender and age groups.
Highlights
Healthy eating is essential to an individual’s physical health, but it is important for a healthy psychological functioning.1 Various studies have linked a nutritional diet and healthy eating habits with individuals’ self esteem, self efficacy, physical functioning, social behaviors and wellbeing.2,3,4Whatever we eat has an impact on our overall quality of life
Descriptive statistics and Chronbach Alpha was calculated for Nutritional Quality of Life (NQoL) Instrument and Nutritional Knowledge Questionnaire
According to Cronbach13 if alpha reliability of a measure is less than .60 it is not reliable and satisfactory, Self Image subscale of nutritional quality of life was omitted from the further analysis due to its inadequate reliability for our sample
Summary
Healthy eating is essential to an individual’s physical health, but it is important for a healthy psychological functioning. Various studies have linked a nutritional diet and healthy eating habits with individuals’ self esteem, self efficacy, physical functioning, social behaviors and wellbeing.2,3,4Whatever we eat has an impact on our overall quality of life. Healthy eating is essential to an individual’s physical health, but it is important for a healthy psychological functioning.. Various studies have linked a nutritional diet and healthy eating habits with individuals’ self esteem, self efficacy, physical functioning, social behaviors and wellbeing.. Nutritional quality of life refers to how meal intake influences different domains of individual's life including psychological wellbeing, self-image view, social interaction, physical functioning and self-efficacy.. Nutritional quality of life refers to how meal intake influences different domains of individual's life including psychological wellbeing, self-image view, social interaction, physical functioning and self-efficacy.1 It is concerned with consumption of nutrients and its effect on individual’s life. Nutrients are considered essential for our body because they help us in proper functioning. The requirement of intake of the nutrients for a body varies according to individual’s age, gender, height and weight.
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