"Mindful eating: a comparative study between medical and non-medical students of Tanta University".

Summary

Mindful eating appears crucial for healthier eating behaviour, with 75.4% of mindful eaters among 576 university students maintaining a healthy BMI, compared to 43.8% of non-mindful eaters having a BMI over 25. This suggests mindfulness helps prevent mindless eating. Notably, medical students adopted mindful eating 73.8% more than non-medical peers, and only 17.4% of medical students had a BMI over 25, versus 34.0% of non-medical students. Academic background may reinforce this positive eating behaviour.

Abstract

Mindful eating serves as a therapeutic intervention for recognizing and gradually altering the established daily eating habits and patterns. This study aims to estimate the prevalence of adoption of principles of mindful eating among medical and non-medical university students and to detect the effect of adoption of mindful eating on the Body Mass Index of the studied subjects. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 576 undergraduate students using a structured self-administered questionnaire comprising sociodemographic data, perceived weight and height and Mindful Eating Questionnaire. The majority of the studied students (94.4%) were used to adopt Mindful eating. The percentages of medical and non-medical students were used to adopt Mindful eating were (97.6% and 91.3%, respectively). A statistically significant association was detected between the type of the study (faculty) and adoption of mindful eating (P-value = 0.001). Medical study permits adopting mindful eating by about 73.8% more than non-medical studies. Medical male students showed higher scores for the disinhibition subscale than females (P-value = 0.025) while non-medical female students showed higher scores for the awareness subscale than males (P-value = 0.006). Nearly three fourths of the studied subjects (74.3%) had Body Mass Index ≥ 25. The percentage of medical students (17.4%) having Body Mass Index ≥ 25 was less than the percentage of their non-medical peers (34.0%). The association between the type of the study (faculty) and Body Mass Index categories was statistically significant (P-value = < 0.001). The higher scores on the Mindful Eating Questionnaire overall and on each of the categories except the awareness score had been associated with lower Body Mass Index. Most of the students adopting Mindful eating (75.4%) had Body Mass Index < 25 as compared to their peers who did not adopt Mindful eating where more than one third of them (43.8%) had Body Mass Index ≥ 25. The association between Mindful eating summary score categories and Body Mass Index categories was statistically significant (P-value = 0.016). A significant negative weak correlation was detected between Mindful eating summary score categories and Body Mass Index categories (P-value = 0.044). Academic background reinforces the potential of mindful eating as a viable strategy for promoting healthier eating habits and effective weight management among university students.

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