A REVIEW OF THE RELEVANT LITERATURE
There is much research concerning the diet and health behaviors of college students (3). One avenue of particular interest to many researchers has been the legendary "freshman 15", an arbitrary fifteen pounds first-year students are anticipated to gain during their first year at college. While many studies have proven that students rarely gain the full fifteen pounds, these studies support that freshmen do in fact have a higher tendency to put on weight in college. One study even found the weight trajectory of college students to be 6.7 times that of the average adult living in the US, while another study similarly discovered that college students gain weight at a rate 5.5 times that of the general population (5,6). Studies support that poor eating behaviors such as unhealthy snacking, overeating and stress are correlated with this trend (2,4,5,7).
Many researchers have conflicting opinions about the key factors causing first-year students to gain weight, and subsequently about how this unhealthy trend should be addressed on college campuses. Studies have shown that first-year students feel limited by their dining options, and in one particular study participants felt that the food at their on-campus dining facilities was "not healthy" (2). Thus, many believe that on-campus foodservice facilities are important targets for health promotion interventions (1,2,4,6,8). However, some studies also support that fitness and education about healthful behavior should be primary intervention targets. Kasperak (et. al), for example, believe that the low physical activity of busy college students contributes most to their weight gain (5). What hasn't been thoroughly researched in the literature is the influence of financial security on the eating patterns of first-year students. While participants in one study identified the high monetary costs associated with healthful behavior as a barrier to a healthy weight maintenance (3), there is little research on how financially secure students supplement their meal plans differently than those students who are less secure.
My personal research contribution to this issue will be centered about investigating the relationship between financial security of first-year college students and their eating behaviors. More specifically, I will focus on how students wealthier students with meal plans may supplement their meal plan differently than financially insecure first-year students with meal plans. I hypothesize that wealthier students are able to supplement their plan in healthier ways and diversify their dining options better than poorer students. I will go about making this research contribution by formulating a survey to send out to first-year students at Emory University. These students will serve as a representative sample of the college student population.
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