Dietary life style of Japanese college students: Relationship between dietary life, mental health and eating disorders

Abstract

A scale was constructed to investigate the dietary life style of Japanese college students relating to dietary life, mental health, and eating disorders. Exploratory factor analysis found four factors, termed "dietary mood," "dietary regulation," "dietary stress avoidance behavior," and "food safety." Cluster analysis revealed four typical dietary habits of Japanese college students: "deprecating food safety," "dietary regulation oriented and infrequent dietary stress avoidance behavior," "deprecating dietary moods," and "frequent dietary stress avoidance behavior." Regarding eating disorders, a high percentage of the moderate eating disorder group exhibited frequent dietary stress avoidance behavior. Regarding mental health, a high percentage of the healthy group showed dietary regulation orientation and infrequent dietary stress avoidance behavior. A high percentage of the neurotic-level participants deprecated dietary moods. These results suggest that dietary regulation and deprecatory mood and infrequent dietary stress avoidance behavior lead to college students having a healthy dietary life.