Sleep and diet patterns of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns

Abstract

Introduction: College students experience high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress during the academic year as they juggle the competing demands of young adulthood and their studies. The COVID-19 pandemic heightened this experience. Healthful diets and sleep patterns are associated with improved physical and mental well-being. Purpose: The goal of this study was to identify if there was a relationship between changes in sleep and diet during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A group of college students was surveyed online using Qualtrics software during the first two months of lockdown restrictions at a large, midwestern university in the United States. Results: More participants reported no changes in diet and increased hours of sleep than reported declines or improvements in diet, or reductions or retained sleep patterns. Participants who maintained their diet were likely to maintain their current sleep pattern. Conclusion: College students demonstrated resilience in healthful behaviors during the first two months of COVID-19 lockdown.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• sleep disturbance
• college students
• health and behavior

Authors’ contributions

Annika Rotvold contributed to data curation, writing—original draft, Kelly Parker contributed to methodology, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, writing—review and editing, Kerrie Honrath contributed to writing—review and editing, Yeong Rhee contributed to conceptualization, methodology, validation, project administration, supervision, writing—review and editing.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the North Dakota State University.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.