Perceived stress in university students during the COVİD-19 pandemic and its relationship with eating motivation and anthropometric measurements

This study aims to examine the relationship between perceived stress during the pandemic, eating motivation, and some anthropometric measurements. The research was conducted with 194 female and 76 male students from a health sciences faculty participating in the study. The socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects and their eating habits were obtained through a questionnaire conducted by face-to-face interview method. Perceived stress and eating motivations were determined using Likert-type scales in the form. Anthropometric measurements of the subjects were measured using a measuring tape and a stadiometer, and body composition analyzes were measured with a Tanita MC-580 analyzer. The data obtained were evaluated with the SPSS 22.0 software package and any value of P<0.05 was considered significant. According to the BMI classification of the World Health Organization (WHO), 9.3% of the participants were underweight, 14.1% were overweight, 3.3% were obese, and the remaining 73.3% were within the normal range. It was determined that 70.7% of the participants had a change in body weight during the pandemic, and in terms of the direction of the change, 63.0% of them had an increase in body weight and 37.0% had a decrease in body weight. The perceived stress scale (PSS-10) score of female students was found to be significantly higher than that of males (P<0.05). The eating motivation subscales with the highest scores were liking, habits, need/ hunger (respectively 5.3, 5.0, 5.0). The female students have significantly higher scores for eating motivation subscales of liking, convenience, pleasure, visual appeal, and affect regulation compared to males (P<0.05). The eating habits of individuals are affected by many factors such as stress and mood. Eating motivation should be taken into consideration to build the required strategies for the development of healthy eating habits in society. Keywords: Stress, Eating motivation, Anthropometric measurement