An Investigation into Why Young Adults Do not Eat Many Vegetables - Case Study Example

An investigation into why young adults do not eat many vegetables Name Institution Course Instructor’s name Date of submission Introduction The importance of healthy living has been emphasized through the media and government policies. The call for healthy living particularly endorses healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables and regular exercises for people of all ages. Numerous studies have shown that healthy eating not only improves health and minimizes the risk of disease, but also improves academic performance for many students. However, while many parents and schools have taken the initiative of supplying healthy foods to their kids including plenty of vegetables and fruits, the same cannot be said of young adults who have greater independence in choosing what they eat (Lea, Crawford and Worsley 2006). There is greater need in understanding why these young adults are not very keen in consuming vegetables as an icon of healthy eating habit. To investigate why young adults do not take a lot of vegetables as required could be best done using the Health Belief Model .The Health Belief Model (HBM) is a psychological model that attempts to explain and predict health behaviors. This model is different from the theory of planned behavior which investigates the link between attitudes and behaviors. The HBM uses five concepts namely, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and perceived barriers to understand eating behavior. According to Shive and Morris (2006), college students’ diets are characteristically short of fruits and vegetables and high in fat, proteins and added sugars. The snacks are also calorie-loaded but very low in nutrients thereby putting them at risk. This paper reports on the findings of a quantitative study involving a sample of six fellow students using the Health Belief Model to assess why young adults do not eat many vegetables by specifically looking at the perceived benefits, susceptibility, severity, barriers and motivations. A number of studies have been conducted in the past to assess how perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers and cues to action influence eating behavior. A 2004 study by the American College Health Association (2006), found out that many college students are susceptible as they chose to eat fatty foods and high protein foods and not vegetables as they believed their stage in life called for high energy foods. House, Su, and Levy-Milne (in Despande, Basil and Basil 2009) found out that college students in Canada perceived the benefits of eating many vegetables as healthy appearance, positive feeling and preventing diseases. Horacek and Betts (in Despande, Basil and Basil 2009) found that the perceived barriers in eating vegetables for young adults were convenience, taste and budget constraints. Furthermore, some college students believed that health is not a priority and that eating habits have little influence on health as portrayed by the media, more so, Hollywood movies where actors eat “carelessly” and still look good (Horacek & Betts in Despande, Basil and Basil 2009). Aims The study sought to find out why young adults, especially those in college, do not take a lot of vegetables as recommended. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends 2 cups of fruit per day for males 14 years and above and 2 cups of fruit daily for women aged 19-30 years and 1.5 cups for women over 30 years. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables per day for all sexes (WHO 2012). As of 2005, only 20% of adult Americans meet this requirement (Kellar and Abraham). This paper will thus use the HBM to explain why young adults do not take the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. Methods The study took a qualitative paradigm with questionnaires as the preferred method of data collection. Questionnaires suited this study as they could provide well guided closed questions to the respondents. The study settled for a sample of six young adults (3 male, 3 female) aged 17-30 years. Seventeen years was chosen as the minimum adult age because it is the legally recognized adult age in the US. The sample comprised of people from different cultural backgrounds; two of the participants were white, one was African American, one Hispanic, one had Asian ancestry and one was Filipino. All participants were healthy and of sound mind with no history of eating disorders. For the convenience of the research, all respondents were college students some living in-campus others off-campus. All participants were chosen from the campus. A preliminary survey was conducted to establish the suitability of the participants in the research. The Participants were required to indicate their family’s social economic status to reflect that of the average social economic status of the neighborhood. Participants were required to express their interest in participating in the research. In accordance with the ethics act, the participants were required to sign consent forms. No incentives were given to persuade or influence the respondents’ participation. However, precise purposes of the study were given. The printed questionnaires containing the closed guided questions were distributed in person to the participants over lunch hour and collected after the break. All the questionnaires were correctly filled out. The questionnaires were drafted from the Health Belief Model with specific questions formed from the five main headings of the model; severity, susceptibility, motivation, benefits and barriers. All the questions were investigating the reasons why young adults were not taking enough vegetables as recommended. A total of twelve questions were asked with odd numbered questions asking behavioral intention questions and even numbered ones asking attitude questions. The questions were asked on a Likert scale, where value of 1 was assigned for ‘Strongly Agree’ response and incremented up to a value of 5 for ‘Strongly Disagree’ response. Questionnaires with subheadings Current behavior 1. How many times in a week do you eat vegetables Never Between 1 – 3 times per week Between 4 – 6 times per week Between 7 – 9 times per week Between 10 – 12 times per week More than 13 times per week Intentions 2. I believe that it is not necessary to eat vegetable very frequently as this stage in life is more energy demanding. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Susceptibility 3. When I buy fast foods high in fats protein, I do so knowing it meets my daily energy needs and will not necessarily make me obese. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree 4. I believe that young people of my age need foods high in proteins and fats to support their higher energy needs Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Motivation 5. Is health your highest priority based on your everyday activities? Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree 6. I believe that health is important but some other things take precedence. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Benefits 7. The short term benefits of fast foods outruns the long term problems of fast foods Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree 8. I believe the short term benefits of fast foods outruns the long term problems of fast foods Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Severity 9. Obesity is not as a serious as portrayed and can be easily controlled. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree 10. I believe is not as a serious as portrayed and can be easily controlled. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Barriers 11. Vegetables are way more expensive than fast foods making them inaccessible to people in college Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree 12. I believe price keeps college students away from vegetables. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Results Behavior 1. On average, how many times in a week do you eat vegetables Never Between 1 – 3 times per week Between 4 – 6 times per week Between 7 – 9 times per week Between 10 – 12 times per week More than 13 times per week 4 1 1 Intention 2. I believe that it is not necessary to eat vegetable very frequently as this stage in life is more energy demanding. Never Between 1 – 3 times per week Between 4 – 6 times per week Between 7 – 9 times per week Between 10 – 12 times per week More than 13 times per week 4 1 1 The table below presents the other results for the other questions Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree Average score When I buy fast foods high in fats protein, I believe it meets my daily energy needs and will not necessarily make me obese. 1 1 2 2 (17÷6) = 2.8 I believe that young people of my age need foods high in proteins and fats to support their higher energy needs 2 4 (26÷6) = 4.3 Health is my highest priority based on my everyday activities. 1 4 1 (19÷6) =3.2 I believe health is important but it is not the first priority based on my everyday activities 1 4 1 (24÷6) = 4.0 The short-term benefits of fast foods outrun the long-term problems of fast foods. 1 1 2 2 (15÷6) = 2.5 I believe the benefits of fast foods outdo the long-term problems of fast foods. 1 1 2 2 (15÷6) = 2.5 Obesity is not as serious as portrayed and can be easily controlled. 1 3 1 1 (16÷6) = 2.6 I believe obesity is not as a serious as portrayed and can be easily controlled. 3 3 (21÷6) = 3.5 Vegetables are way more expensive than fast foods making them inaccessible to people in college 4 2 (28÷6) = 4.7 I believe vegetables are way more expensive than fast foods making them inaccessible to people in college 4 1 1 (27÷6) = 4.5 Calculations were made using the Likert scale which is as follows; strongly agree = 5, agree = 4, neutral = 3, disagree = 2, strongly disagree 1 Calculations for the results as shown on the shaded column of the table indicate that the barrier of price in consuming vegetables is most responsible for young adults not eating as many vegetables as recommended with a score of 4.7. Furthermore, most of the respondents shared the belief that price was the greatest barrier barring them from consuming more vegetables with score 4.5. Discussion The study sought to find out why young adults, especially those in college, do not take a lot of vegetables as recommended. The study used a qualitative approach based on the health belief model. The randomly selected sample of six comprised of fellow students from the campus from different ethnic backgrounds. The research relied on questionnaires based on the five concepts of the health belief model namely susceptibility, motivation, barriers, severity and benefits. Susceptibility The views of the participants were sought in terms of susceptibility were sought. Participants were asked to state their views ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree on the statement “When I buy fast foods high in fats and proteins, I do so as it meets my daily energy needs and will not necessarily make me obese.” The views on behavior were varied with one participant strongly agreeing, one agreeing, two neutral, one disagreeing and one strongly disagreeing. The susceptibility score was 2.8 indicating that it had relative impact on the choice to eat vegetables. As for the attitude towards the same, the score was 4.3 implying that beliefs about the need to meet daily energy requirements. Benefits The benefits of fast foods scored poorly at 2.5, same as the attitude towards the fast foods. Past studies point to numerous problems associated with fast foods. The by Racette et al (2005) showed that 90% of freshmen and sophomores added weight owing to their fat-rich diets. Hermsdorff et al (2010) showed that higher vegetable intake has numerous health benefits including reduced C-reactive protein (CRP) and homocysteine concentrations and a lower mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of some relevant proinflammatory markers in healthy young adults. As for the case of obesity, the research by Howarth et al (2007) found close association with the number of meals per day rather than the components of meals to obesity both in young and older adults. The researcher thus concluded that eating more than three meals a day could lead to obesity. Future research thus needs to assess the effects of excessive vegetable consumption. Barriers A study by Racette et al (2005) showed that 70% of sophomores and freshmen students investigated ate less than five fruits and vegetables daily. In the same study, 50% of college students ate foods rich in fats and proteins at least three times daily. The research however, did not adequately address why the participants ate less fruits and vegetables. This report however showed that price of vegetables was the greatest barrier (4.7) to taking as many vegetables daily as recommended. The participants had great conviction (4.5) that the price of vegetables was the problem. This indicates that a fall in the price of vegetables as compared to other foods could increase consumption. Therefore, future research should seek to compare the price of vegetables and other fast foods to verify these findings. Severity The statement “obesity is not as a serious as portrayed and can be easily controlled” was posed to participant which scored 2.6 and an attitude of 3.5. This implies that the attitude towards obesity is worrying. This could that mean that knowledge in health is skewed and that such findings are supported by the Howarth et al’s (2007) study which associates obesity with the quantity of food rather than its quality. Škėmienė et al’s (2007), study however, shows that knowledge in health does not automatically improve nutritional habits. The study involving 349 first- and third-year students of the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy at Kaunas University of Medicine showed that only 20% of them ate 400g of fruits as recommended. Motivation Whether health is a priority based on everyday activity scored fairly well at 3.2 while the attitude towards the same scored 4.0. This shows that the participants are aware of the role their own initiative plays in preserving and promoting their health. Bandura (2005) captures this in his article which basically confirms the shift in the conception of health from a disease model to a health model. The author says that health promotion should begin with goals and not means. This could imply the participants in this research are not well informed about the goals, in that they acknowledge that their health should be their highest priority, but are not keen on the means (eating healthy). The study by Shive and Morris (2006) shows that young adults responded well to health promotion messages persuading them to consumer more fruits and vegetables. This shows that the young adults have little information and hence poorly motivated to eat as many vegetables as recommended. This study was limited by the very small sample size of six. From such a sample, the confidence level and the reliability of the findings are very low. Future research should involve a larger sample and more variables to capture more issues such as daily calorie intake. Conclusion From the study, it is apparent that young adults face the risk of numerous avoidable diseases if there is no intervention. The availability of fruits and their pricing is a tricky matter. While many students claimed that vegetables are costly, past studies have indicated that price is not a significant determinant. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that more knowledge on feeding habits and living healthy will influence eating behavior given that students undertaking medical and nutritional courses, who are expected to be at the forefront in calling for increased consumption of vegetables are themselves not consuming enough vegetables. Future research should target to study the issue of taste in consuming vegetables. From the study, it is highly recommended that campaigns among young adults on healthy living should be intensified. References Bandura, A. 2005. The Primacy of Self-Regulation in Health Promotion. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54 ; 2, 245–254. Bodor, J., Rose, D., Farley, T., Swalm, C. and Scott, S. 2007. Neighbourhood fruit and vegetable availability and consumption: the role of small food stores in an urban environment. 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