Beliefs and Behaviors: Mind-Body Health Influences on Health Behaviors Amidst COVID-19

In order to understand how health beliefs map onto health behaviors, a national survey, administered in the wake of the COVID-19 campus closures, was conducted to explore college students’ mind-body health beliefs and their health behaviors (across dimensions of physical exercise, diet/nutrition, and socialization). To this end, the Mind-Body Health Screener (MBHS), a five-item, Likert scale, brief measure, was developed. The present study applied an online survey design administered nationally to U.S. undergraduate students during the initial lockdowns with the pandemic (n = 557). To examine the psychometric properties of the MBHS, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were run as well as measures of reliability. Furthermore, linear regressions and effect sizes were computed to understand the connection between mind-body health beliefs and behaviors. While initial data supported the psychometric properties of the Mind-Body Health Screener (MBHS) developed for this purpose, substantive results suggested that mind-body health beliefs did not relate to mind-body health behaviors (either before or after the campus closures), aligning with the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Post hoc analysis did, however, suggest a significant change in health behaviors from pre-campus closures to during the closures, suggesting students engaged in more physical exercise, eating behaviors, and socializing before campus closed, observed with small to large effects. Taken together, the findings of the present study illustrate how the Cognitive Dissonance Theory is a relevant perspective to consider the relation between health beliefs and behaviors during a period of immense stress, such as the COVID-19 initial campus closures.