Evaluation of the relationship between FOOD choice motives and depression, anxiety, stress levels and DİET quality in university students

This study was conducted with 150 volunteer participants, who were undergraduate students at Istanbul Gedik University Faculty of Health Sciences, between March-April 2022 to evaluate the relationship between food choice motivations and depression, anxiety, stress levels and diet quality in university students. A questionnaire consisting of 4 parts was applied to the participants by face-to-face interview technique. In the first part of the questionnaire, the sociodemographic characteristics and eating habits of the individuals were questioned. In other parts, "Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21)" to determine the depression, anxiety, and stress levels of individuals, "Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ)" to determine food choice motives and "Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015)" to determine diet quality was used. To use HEI-2015, a daily food consumption record was taken with the reminder method. Those who score 50 or less in HEI-2015 are classified as poor, those between 50-80 are classified as needing improvement, and those who score 80 and above are classified as having good diet quality. While 62.7% of the participants in the study were female, 37.3% were male. When evaluated according to diet quality, 48.7% of individuals have poor diet quality, 38.7% have diet quality that required improvement and 12.7% have good diet quality. According to the HEI-2015 score of women, their diet quality was found to be higher than that of men (p<0.05). It was found that 47.3% of the participants did not have depression, and 52.7% had different levels of depression. It was found that 49.3% of the participants had no anxiety, and 50.7% had different levels of anxiety. It was found that 69.3% of the participants had no stress, and 30.7% had different levels of stress. As a result of this study, it was found that as the anxiety and stress levels of the individuals increased, the importance they attached to the motivations of mood and price in food choice increased (p<0.05). It was found that as the depression level of individuals increased, the importance they gave to health, natural content and ethical concerns in food choice decreased (p<0.05). Dietary quality increased with the increasing importance given to health, natural content and weight control motives while choosing food (p<0.05); It was found that diet quality decreased as they gave importance to mood, familiarity, and convenience motives (p<0.05). As a result, it has been found that the motivations that university students give importance to when choosing food according to different depression, anxiety and stress levels can change and the quality of the diet is affected according to the food choice motives. Policies should be developed to reduce the importance they give to the convenience, mood and familiarity motives that cause a decrease in diet quality in university students and to increase the importance they attach to health, natural content and weight control motives that cause an increase in diet quality. In addition, the increase in the level of depression in students decreases the importance given to health and natural content motives, which are among the food choice motives that increase diet quality. On the other hand, the increase in anxiety and stress levels increases the importance given to the mood motive, which is one of the food choice motives that reduce diet quality. For this reason, appropriate trainings aimed at helping university students with depression, anxiety, and stress management should be planned. Keywords: Food choice motives, depression, anxiety and stress, diet quality