Evaluation of Eating Attitudes and Body Composition of University Students

The aim of this study is to evaluate the eating attitudes of university students according to their body composition and some demographic variables. The sample of the study consisted of a total of 364 university students, 181 women and 183 men, studying at the Faculty of Sports Sciences of Selçuk University. For this study, approval was obtained from the Non-Interventional Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Sports Sciences at Selçuk University, and informed consent forms were obtained from the participants confirming their voluntary participation. The study was conducted based on a survey model. Personal information forms prepared by the researcher and Eating Attitudes Test-26 scale forms designed to determine individuals' eating attitudes were administered to the participants face-to-face outside of class hours, with the necessary explanations. In addition, the body composition components of the participants were determined using a Tanita BC 545 device. The data obtained from the research were analyzed using the SPSS 29.0 software package. Since the assumption of normal distribution was not met in the analysis of the data, non-parametric tests were used in the statistical evaluation of the data. For this purpose, the Mann Whitney U test was used for comparing quantitative data between two groups; The Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for more than two groups. Post hoc multiple comparisons were performed to identify the differing groups in the Kruskal-Wallis H test. The significance level was accepted as 0.05 in the study. The analysis revealed that, according to the cutoff values of the eating attitude scale, 90.6% of women had normal and 9.4% had abnormal eating attitudes, while 88.5% of men had normal and 11.5% had abnormal eating attitudes. Furthermore, while no significant difference was found in body composition according to gender and the cutoff values of the eating attitude scale, statistically significant results were obtained in the sub-dimensions of the eating attitude test according to age, exercise status, number of daily main and snack meals, daily water consumption, appearance perception, and healthy eating perception. In conclusion, it can be said that regular exercise and healthy eating habits acquired during childhood positively influence the eating attitudes and body composition of young adults, especially those in university.