ScienceDaily: Loneliness associated with unhealthful diets and physical inactivity among US college students

Sedentary (19.2%) and low active (53.8%) behaviors were more frequent in students reporting high loneliness (score ranges of 4-6 and 7-9) than those reporting low loneliness (score of 10-12). Students reporting more loneliness had higher fat diets than students reporting less loneliness.

"Interventions to reduce loneliness may have a positive effect on health promotion in this population. This data goes along with other initial findings from the Health Starts Here study that college students are not meeting healthy dietary guidelines or getting enough physical activity," said Cheskin, who has an MD.

The study is a cross-sectional study that analyzed baseline data collected in the first wave of Mason: Health Start Here in 2019, and was funded by George Mason University's Institute for BioHealth Innovation. "Loneliness is associated with unhealthful dietary behaviors and physical inactivity among US college students," was published in November 2022 in the Journal of American College Health."

My Takeaways:

• According to a recent cross-sectional study, researchers found that there was a significant correlation between loneliness with unhealthy diets and lack of exercise in the college US population. Although specifically studying the college population, there is also some resemblance within the general population as well with previous studies.

• However there is a general uncertainty if one causes the other, if loneliness leads to isolating behaviors and a general lack of self-care motivation or if lack of exercise and healthy diet produces mental states that promote loneliness. It’ll be interesting to see what future research comes up on this relationship.

• We can say however, that given these two variables are related it may be well worth to state that perhaps improving our mental health can involve improving our physical one. Or sometimes tackling the issues of loneliness can help us with our physical health goals as well.

Full article is here!

What are some ways that help you during loneliness?

#Loneliness #HealthyHabits #Exercise