The Relative Contribution of Dietary Habits, Leisure-Time Exercise, Exercise Attitude, and Body Mass Index to Self-Rated Health among College Students in Taiwan.

Huey-Hong Hsieh,Chia-Ming Chang,Li-Wei Liu,Hsiu-Chin Huang

doi:10.3390/ijerph15050967

Abstract

Background: Self-rated health (SRH) is consistent with objective health status and can serve as a global measure of health status in the general population. The purpose of this study is to find the connections of dietary habits, leisure-time exercise, exercise attitude, and body mass index (BMI) to SRH among college students. Methods: The “dietary–exercise attitude and SRH” questionnaire was developed to investigate college students in Taiwan through the Internet. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the relationship among them. Results: The reliability and validity were confirmed using PLS-SEM. The results found exercise habits, dietary habits, and BMI explained 26.5% of SRH. Poor dietary habits and being overweight led to bad health status (negative path coefficients to SRH). Additionally, the study found that positive exercise attitude had a positive relationship with exercise habits. Conclusions: Based on the results, college students should be well-informed of the potential threat of poor dietary habits and being overweight to health and should improve their attitude with respect to exercise so as to prevent overweight-related diseases.

Highlights

With the prevalence of communication products, robots, sedentary lifestyles, and poor dietary habits, obesity is common among all age groups more than ever
This study examined the relationships of the relative contribution of dietary habits (DH), exercise attitude (EA), exercise habits (EH), and body mass index (BMI) to self-rated health (SRH) among college students
Taking a closer look at the path coefficients of the predictive variables, we can see that the PDH and BMI values are all negative, indicating that poor dietary habits and being overweight led to bad health status

Summary

Introduction

With the prevalence of communication products, robots, sedentary lifestyles, and poor dietary habits, obesity is common among all age groups more than ever. Most students only need to study hard and parents do the rest [4]. Studies [5,6] of the changes of diet and exercise in Taiwan have shown the trends of poor dietary habits (e.g., consuming sugary drinks) and the decrease of leisure-time exercise. Without the parents’ supervision of diet and lifestyle, being overweight or obese has become prevalent among college students in Taiwan [6]. The purpose of this study is to find the connections of dietary habits, leisure-time exercise, exercise attitude, and body mass index (BMI) to SRH among college students. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the relationship among them

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion