Comparing Dieting Habits of Male and Female College Students of Different BMI’s
Author:
Amber RzeznikMentor:
Loan Kim, Assistant Professor of Nutritional Science, Pepperdine UniversityDiscipline = Nutrition/ Public Health The increase in rates of obesity in America paired with social pressure to be thin has lead to dieting in many college students today. Previous studies have shown that the majority of college women engage in dieting practices in order to lose weight, although results of those studies show that those who dieted more and ate fewer meals tended to have greater BMI’s. In order to assess the differences in dieting behaviors between college students of different BMIs and gender, 50 male and 50 female students at Pepperdine University were asked to fill out a survey assessing dieting attempts, meal frequency, anthropometric measures, and demographics. After analyzing the survey data using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20 software, no significant differences in dieting were found between BMI group. However, several differences were found between gender, reflecting what previous studies have shown. Women reported using more dieting strategies and had a stronger desire to want to lose weight, while the majority of males did not report practicing the same dieting strategies as frequently and were either satisfied with their current weight or wanted to gain weight. The results for males and females occurred regardless of which BMI group they fell into.