Exploring University of Leicester Students Perception of Healthy Eating and Food Consumption - Essay Example

Marketing research "Exploring of Leicester Perception of Healthy Eating and Food Consumption  Contents Marketing research "Exploring University of Leicester Students’ Perception of Healthy Eating and Food Consumption  1 Background Literature and Research Problems: 3 Research Objectives/Questions: 4 Conclusions and recommendations: 5 Reflection: 7 Limitations: 7 Ethical Consideration: 8 References: 9 Background Literature and Research Problems: Dieting habits included into public life style and that is a very good thing as healthy diet keeps body fit and active. Pattern of food consumption is changing drastically among the population. But still younger generations that are mainly students still eat too much junk food. Foods like pizza, chowmin, hot dogs, burgers, cold drinks, French fries and any deep fried foods can be considered as junk food. These foods not only have very low nutritional values but also too much fat. These extra calories can cause several diseases among students from heart diseases to excessive weight gain. It is been seen that carbohydrate consumption depends on consumers mood. When students get depressed they usually consume carbohydrate more. But excessive consumption of carbohydrate can cause obesity. According to several research reports consumptions of unhealthy food can cause stress and depression. During stressed situations students overeat foods to relief it but in normal situation they would avoid overeating (Rodriguez, 2012). Stress in student life directly proportional to overweight, unhealthy food consumption and try to blindly copy food habit from advertisement. Shifted of food choices from lower fat contain food to higher fat contain food can happen among the students because of stress (Blum, 2011). In past couple of research it is been found that during exams or before the exams or final year project or thesis submission or campus interview consumption of foods in canteen or hostel increase in great extent. Students do that to relief the stress from their head and try to distract themselves from subjects. Senior female students are getting weight because of less eating of vegetables, high-stress and consumption of high cholesterol foods. In research 65% of UOL students replied that they have high academic stress in their university and 50% of the students replied that they eat very unhealthy food regularly in their university in lunch time (Laria, 2012). This is the prior time to understand the eating pattern of students. If stress and depressive mood can lead to the unhealthy food habit then on the other hand good mood and excellent psychiatric situation can lead to healthy and nutritional food habit (Kwate, 2010). University students have the liberty to choose their own food and as they spent more time outside the home they usually eat less homemade food and more outside food. Eating behaviour and knowledge on nutritional diet formed in young adult age that is the college and university time. So making students aware of nutritional and healthy food is very important as it will help them throughout their prolonged lifespan. That is why a synchronisation between metal and physical health is necessary (Zenk, 2009). Students who are in UOL today will be the tomorrow’s parents and icons. Unhealthy food habit in today can put the students in physical and mental stress in future and that can be transforming to their future generation (Gittelsohn, 2011). In last couple of studies researcher focused on the reason of depressed students and emotional breakdown among students can be the outcome of prolonged eating of unhealthy food. But it varies according to gender (Laraia, 2010). In male students stress, depressions are less likely to relate themselves towards unhealthy dieting but in female students it is very much effective and visible (Mikolajczyk, Ansari and Maxwell, A.E. 2009). Research Objectives/Questions: In preliminary focus group interviews in 2013, it is been found that there are significant amount of gap in University of Leicester student’s perception of healthy diet and complete nutrition (Hartley, 2011). This research is done for GENIE/HERO among the students of 2013-2014 batches. Purpose of the research is to understand the nature of food shopping and cooking habit among the students (Rodriquez, 2011). Also what kind of food students prefer to consume and what not can be understood by the research. Following are the research objectives of this research- Factors that motivates UOL students’ choice of food purchase and cooking. Barriers that restrict UOL students from choosing healthy and nutritional foods during shopping or cooking. UOL students’ awareness and knowledge of healthy and nutritional food habit. How much UOL students favour their university food services. Timely eating habit of UOL students. Steps taken by the university to make the students aware of having healthy and nutritional foods. If any steps taken by the university are those enough and students are how easily accepting it. Conclusions and recommendations: Students of University of Leicester have different perceptions of having nutritional food. From Undergraduate to post graduate and PhD different students’ behaviours and choices regarding food are widely varied (Gittelsohn, 2011). As it is a respectable and renowned university of United Kingdom, several international students also took admission here. It is been found that food consumption is different in different nations or regions. Consumption of food may depend on age in an extent but it hugely depends on cultural and socio economic back ground of students (Sanchez-Vaznaugh, 2012). Chinese, Japanese and Koreans students prefer noodles in their lunch. Indian students prefer curry and spicy foods, American students prefer chicken and meat, Middle Eastern students prefer sweets and beverages and European students prefer red meat and bread in their lunch with carbohydrate drinks. As per the research it is been found that female students are more aware of nutritional values and healthy foods than their male counter parts. As females are by nature more conscious about health and figure it can said that it is quite natural (Gittelsohn, 2012). But recent trend joining gym and maintain an attractive figure among male students is really helpful for them because gym instructor and dietician of gym are suggesting them about healthy food habit and strict diet chart have to follow if any students want to continue in University gym. That is making University of Leicester students more aware of nutrition and good health (Blumenthal, 2013). Students also having some problem with their lunch timings some of them feel it is shorter and some of them even said canteen is not sufficient for the entire students so whenever they go for lunch it is full (Rose, 2010). Also stress and pressure of study is bit higher in University of Leicester because of standard of education and global exposure programmes (Hillier, 2012). So students have to manage their lunch timing by themselves otherwise it can result an unfavourable condition later. Some students take their lunches according to their time. That means they do not follow standard timings of lunch. They may now do not feel any problem but later days it can cause serious trouble for them (Rodriguez, 2012). Awareness among the students about nutrition and healthy food is seemed to be lower than what expected (Laraia, 2010). It is dangerous now days that eating without knowing the foods nutritional value. Student life is the door to adult life period and this is the high time for growth (Hartley, 2011). If body does not get the proper nutrition what is required for a growing body it will not develop any further and serious malnutrition diseases can attack later. Students at this age spent significant amount of their life in university rather than home. University have a responsibility to make them aware of nutrition and healthy eating (Hodgson, 2012). Campaign to make students aware of nutritional value of different foods and effectiveness of having complete healthy diet. University can tie up with RED CROSS or any other professional health care unit and do free health check up periodically among the students. More number of group events, debates and discussions need to be organised as this problem directly related to the physical and mental health of students. May be experts from health departments can be called and guest lectures and seminars can be organised periodically. But university have to make sure that how many students are actually attending it. A permanent full credit subject can be introduced on nutrition. But management need to think about that it may not increase the burden on student which already they have. Reflection: Limitations: There were several limitations of this research they are- As time for the research was very short so researcher had to hurry with his research work and completed it on time. Next time if again researcher needs to do further research on this topic researcher will take more and analyse every situation. A deep and thorough analysis can make this research more valuable for the authorities. Budget for the research was also small. That reduces the sample size. Though according to the client only qualitative analysis was made. So sample had to be small. If next time researcher have to go for a research like this then both quantitative and qualitative data collection method should be used. Conducting Interviews of focused groups were a very tough job. As students were very busy with their scheduled and different students have it differently so bring them on a same platform was very difficult. But later with the help of UOL management it became easier. If further research is necessary then a seminar can be organized and more number of students can be involved into the group. Ethical Consideration: Respondents were not forced or manipulated to answer the questions. All the respondents gave the answer by their own knowledge and by their own willing. All the responses are taken from real respondents and no misinformation or fake information is used in there. If any respondent did not feel safe or did not willing to share their data with the researcher they had the options to skip the question or leave the research. Every respondent were aware of the purpose of this research and positively the participated and shared information with researcher. 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Available at < http://www.healthyeatingresearch.org/research-results-mainmenu-35/food-access-mainmenu-41> [Accessed on 11/1/14] Rose, D. 2010. The Rationale behind Small Food Store Interventions in Low-Income Urban Neighborhoods: Insights from New Orleans. Available at < http://www.healthyeatingresearch.org/research-results-mainmenu-35/food-access-mainmenu-41> [Accessed on 11/1/14] Kwate, N.O. 2010. Separate and Unequal: The Influence of Neighborhood and School Characteristics on Spatial Proximity Between Fast Food and Schools. Available at < http://www.healthyeatingresearch.org/research-results-mainmenu-35/food-access-mainmenu-41> [Accessed on 11/1/14] Read More