The university’s simple nutrition program enabled students to eat healthier, reduce their intake of ultra-processed foods and show encouraging signs of improved mental health, highlighting how small changes in diet can support both body and mind.
Research: Changes in eating habits and mental health of college students after an educational intervention: A pilot study. Image credit: RossHelen/Shutterstock.com
New research published in scientific report highlight the benefits of implementing nutrition education programs in universities, including improved diet quality and positive trends in students’ mental health.
Ultra-processed foods are linked to poorer mental health
The growing popularity of processed and ultra-processed foods poses a major public health challenge around the world. This is because these foods are known to increase the risk of cardiometabolic and mental health disorders, especially among adolescents and young adults.
According to recent global estimates, around 2.5 billion people worldwide live with obesity or overweight, and 970 million people suffer from mental disorders.
Modifiable lifestyle factors play an important role in modulating the risk of both physical and mental disorders. Eating a healthy, balanced diet and getting regular physical activity has been shown to improve cardiometabolic health and reduce the risk of psychological distress such as depression and anxiety.
Short-term nutritional interventions showed beneficial outcomes such as improved diet quality and dietary habits, leading to improved metabolism. Compared with single-component or short-term interventions, long-term multicomponent interventions are associated with greater improvements in dietary habits, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Given the known benefits of nutritional interventions and the lack of research on the mental health effects of nutritional interventions among Chilean students, researchers from Universidad Finis Terrae, Chile, evaluated the impact of nutrition education programs on the diet quality and mental health of Chilean university students.
Students participated in seminars, refreshment sessions and cooking instruction
Thirty-one university students between the ages of 18 and 20 participated in the study. Participants participated in a three-month nutrition education program that included seminars, healthy snack breaks, nutrition and health information, and a book that provided easy and inexpensive recipes for preparing real, healthy food.
Participants’ dietary intake and mental well-being were assessed before and after the intervention using an automated self-administered dietary assessment tool and a validated mental well-being scale, respectively.
This study was designed as a pre- and post-intervention pilot without a control group, so the results must be interpreted with caution and a causal relationship cannot be established.
Nutritional programs reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods
An assessment of macronutrient (protein, fat, and carbohydrate) intakes revealed a significant increase in the proportion of students whose carbohydrate and fat intakes were within recommended ranges after completing the nutrition education program. However, participants’ protein intake was adequate both at baseline and after the intervention period.
Assessing intakes of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and food groups revealed that calcium and sodium intakes were below and above recommended ranges, respectively, at baseline across participants. After the intervention, calcium intake increased and sodium intake decreased significantly and was no longer statistically different from the recommended intake range.
After the intervention, fruit intake almost doubled. However, it remained below the recommended range. In contrast, intake of processed and ultra-processed foods decreased significantly after the intervention. Dairy, vegetable, and total fiber intakes were below recommended ranges at both time points and remained unchanged after the intervention.
Assessments of participants’ mental well-being after the intervention showed moderate increases in subjective well-being on items related to cognitive clarity, social connectedness, and decision-making. However, emotional and self-awareness items remained largely unchanged after the intervention. Overall mental health scores increased from low to moderate range, but these changes were not statistically significant.
The impact of dietary patterns on mental health
Correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between sodium intake and saturated fat intake among participants at baseline. This association significantly weakened over time during the intervention period.
A significant inverse association was observed between sodium intake and mental health at baseline, which disappeared after the intervention. These findings indicate that the association between unhealthy diet and mental health may be attenuated after the intervention.
Nutrition education showed targeted effects on students’ health
This study highlights the utility of structured nutrition education interventions in improving dietary quality and supporting positive trends in mental health among college students.
Overall, the findings show that nutrition education programs are associated with beneficial behavioral changes that can be implemented immediately, such as limiting salt intake and reducing intake of processed and ultra-processed foods. However, this intervention may be less effective in changing habit-dependent behaviors, such as increasing vegetable and fiber intake.
Of note, although long-term outcomes were not evaluated in this study, the findings indicate that even partial improvements in dietary patterns can contribute to favorable trends in some aspects of college students’ mental health.
Regarding mental health, this study found that nutrition education programs were associated with increased interpersonal intimacy and perceived personal autonomy. The improvement in participants’ overall mental health scores observed after the intervention may be attributed to anti-inflammatory and gut health-improving responses driven by increased fruit and calcium intake and decreased sodium and ultra-processed food intake. However, these biological mechanisms were not directly measured in the study.
Previous studies of Chilean university students have reported a lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating habits, and an increased risk of weight gain upon entering higher education. Studies in adult populations report that approximately 33% of women and 27% of men in Chile are obese. When it comes to mental health, studies have observed that 60% of adolescents have psychological distress.
Considering the nutritional and mental health scenario in Chile, this study highlights the need for future large-scale and longitudinal research to identify specific program components that most effectively help students achieve nutritional adequacy and mental health.
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Reference magazines:
- Torres K, Terzi S, Simon L. (2026). Changes in eating habits and mental health of college students after an educational intervention: A pilot study. scientific report. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-52758-3. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-52758-3
