Abstract
M.Cur. (Community Nursing Science)
Healthy dietary practices are important in all life stages, including an adolescent stage.
Majority of undergraduate students in South African universities are aged between 18 and 24 years, making some of them adolescents, meaning they are still growing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines an adolescent as a person aged between 10 and 19 years. The adolescent stage is a transition period between childhood and adulthood, and requires healthy dietary practices. During this time adolescents experience an intense and rapid physical, psychological and cognitive development affecting every organ of the body, including the brain. All these intense and rapid changes are reliant on healthy dietary practices.
It is during this crucial life stage that some undergraduate students leave their homes to come and live in the university residences. Many of them are planning, shopping for and cooking their own meals for the first time in their lives. Such transitions from childhood to adulthood and from high school to university might initiate a decline in healthy dietary practices.
The purpose of this study was to determine the dietary practices of undergraduate students living in the residences of a university in Gauteng and from the findings describe recommendations to improve their dietary practices. To meet the purpose of the study, a quantitative, descriptive, non-experimental and contextual research design was followed. Data was collected using a structured, self-administered questionnaire. Pilot study was done to pre-test the questionnaire before it was distributed to the consenting participants, and data from pilot study was included in the final analysis.
Population was ±6000 students who live in the residences of a university in Gauteng. Target population was all undergraduate students living in 20 undergraduate residences. Accessible population were all undergraduate students from the nine randomly selected residences of a university in Gauteng where the study took place...