Abstract
First-year college students are at particular risk of dietary maladaptation during their transition to adulthood. A college environment that facilitates consistent access to nutritious food is critical to ensuring dietary adequacy among students. The objective of the study was to examine perceptions of the campus food environment and its influence on the eating choices of first-year students attending a minority-serving university located in a food desert. Focus group interviews with twenty-one first-year students were conducted from November 2016 to January 2017. Students participated in 1 of 5 focus groups. Most interviewees identified as being of Hispanic/Latino or Asian/Pacific Islander origin. A grounded theory approach was applied for inductive identification of relevant concepts and deductive interpretation of patterns and relationships among themes. Themes related to the perceived food environment included adequacy (i.e., variety and quality), acceptability (i.e., familiarity and preferences), affordability, and accessibility (i.e., convenience and accommodation). Subjective norms and processes of decisional balance and agency were themes characterizing interpersonal and personal factors affecting students’ eating choices. The perceived environment appeared to closely interact with subjective norms to inform internal processes of decision-making and agency around the eating choices of first-year students attending a minority-serving university campus located in a food desert.
Highlights
The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical period of increased autonomy and independence [1]
The purpose of the present study was to examine perceptions on the campus food environment, the personal and interpersonal factors that interact with the perceived food environment, and their collective influence on the eating choices of first-year students attending a university located in a food desert
Findings from this study echo the literature on the role of the physical, economic, and sociocultural environment to affect the ability to secure nutritious food [13,14,16,44,45], and notably, it is the first to extend the knowledge on how this phenomenon is expressed in first-year college students exposed to a food desert, an environment deprived of a consistent variety of nutritious options
Summary
The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical period of increased autonomy and independence [1]. For about 20 million young adults in 2015, this represented the transition to college [2]. During this transition, students establish dietary independence and become vulnerable to unfavorable changes in diet and physical activity, which can lead to malnutrition and both acute and long-lasting behavioral and health outcomes [3]. According to the most recent data, adolescents aged 14 to 18 years consume lower than the recommended amount of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and excessive amounts of calories from added sugar, solid fats, and alcohol [4]. A recent report indicates that adolescents in the lowest quartile of fruit and vegetable intake continue to have lower intake of those foods as young adults [5]. College and postsecondary education students are disproportionally affected by food insecurity [7,8,9]
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