The Dietary Habits of College Freshmen in Early Adulthood

College students enter a critical period during early adulthood that involves transitioning to college and making independent dietary choices. As this time period is marked by new health habits and actions, this study observed what dietary habits may be occurring during the initial transition into college. We observed dietary habits of college students during their first semester in college. Forty participants (33% male, 67% female) completed the study with the mean BMI of females being 25.1 (overweight) and the mean BMI of males being 23.4 (normal-weight). Two sets of online surveys (pre-test and post-test) assessing the daily number of servings of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, oils, dairy, combination/other were administered. The results showed that overall the number of food servings consumed between the pre-test period and the post-test period varied by both gender and food group. Men ate more servings from all food groups (besides vegetables and combination/other) during the pre-test period than females (all p < .05). Except for vegetables and combination foods, men showed a significantly greater drop in number of servings for all food groups from pre to post-test as compared to females, whereas, women showed no difference in number of servings consumed between pre-test and post-test for any food. Males were classified as average weight at the beginning of the study and they may have not been aware of the amount of food they were consuming initially (unlike the female group who was overweight). Also, males may have been displaying evolutionary behavior of "showing off" when dining around females and thus consumed more. Keywords: early adulthood, dietary habits, freshmen