What Is Healthy Eating? Exploring Profiles of Intuitive Eating and Nutritionally Healthy Eating in College Women

Abstract

Purpose Research suggests that food’s nutritional content and the feelings and behaviors associated with eating contribute to overall health, yet these constructs are rarely considered simultaneously. The current cross-sectional study investigated healthy eating profiles in college women that included both nutritional quality and intuitive eating (IE), with IE being an eating style that prioritizes physiological hunger/satiety cues and minimizes dieting and emotional eating. Design/Setting/Subjects Undergraduate women ( n = 352) completed an online assessment and daily diaries (80% retention). Measures Nutritionally healthy eating, IE, dieting, body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and psychological health were examined. Analysis Latent profile analysis explored patterns of nutritionally healthy eating and IE, and determined how these patterns related to psychological and disordered eating outcomes. Results A four-profile solution emerged: 1) Dieting (high nutritionally healthy eating + intermediate IE), 2) Unhealthy Eating (low nutritionally healthy eating + low IE), 3) Intuitive Eating (moderately high nutritionally healthy eating + high IE), and 4) Non-Dieting (low nutritionally healthy eating + intermediate IE). These profiles significantly differed from one another, such that the Intuitive Eating and Non-Dieting profiles reported lower psychological distress, body mass index, and disordered eating compared to other profiles, while the Dieting and Unhealthy Eating profiles showed the healthiest and poorest nutritional eating, respectively. Conclusion These findings suggest that IE and nutritionally healthy eating are distinct factors in conceptualizing the eating patterns of college women, and both should be considered when developing interventions. Future research should replicate these findings in larger/more diverse samples and examine eating profiles longitudinally.