Life, Family and Food Satisfaction in University Students

Abstract

This study assesses the relationship between food satisfaction and family satisfaction and their relationships to university student life satisfaction, while also exploring the moderating role of the place of student residence, student self-health perception and the importance students assign to food in relation to well-being. A survey was applied to a convenience sample of 269 university students. The questionnaire included: the Satisfaction with Life Scale, Satisfaction with Food-related Life, the family subscale of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale and the first item of the Health-related Quality of Life Index. Having controlled for gender and socioeconomic status, it was found that a student’s life satisfaction was significantly related to food satisfaction and, to a lesser extent, family satisfaction. Food satisfaction was positively and significantly related to family satisfaction. A moderating role of student residence was not found. Student health self-perception was found to moderate the relationship between family and life satisfaction, whereas the importance assigned to food in relation to well-being was found to moderate the relationship between food and student life satisfaction. These findings suggest that, in order to increase student life satisfaction, it is important to improve family satisfaction for those students who have a negative health self-perception. Likewise, improving food satisfaction is relevant for those students who gave low importance to food in regard to their well-being. © 2018 Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz. Este es un artículo Open Access bajo la licencia CC BY-NC-ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/). Life, Family and Food Satisfaction in University Students Berta Schnettlera,b,e,*, Klaus G. Grunertc, Edgardo Miranda-Zapatad, Ligia Orellanae,f, José Sepúlvedae,f, Clementina Huechee, Natalia Salinas-Oñatee, Germán Lobosg, Marianela Denegrie,h, Cristian Adasme-Berríosi a Universidad de La Frontera, Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Forestales, Temuco, Chile. b Universidad de La Frontera, Scientific and Technological Bioresource Nucleus (BIOREN-UFRO), Temuco, Chile. c Aarhus University, MAPP Centre, Denmark. d Universidad de La Frontera, Núcleo Científico y Tecnológico en Ciencias Sociales, Laboratorio de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales y Aplicadas (LICSA), Temuco, Chile. e Universidad de La Frontera, Núcleo Científico y Tecnológico en Ciencias Sociales, Centro de Excelencia en Psicología Económica y del Consumo, Temuco, Chile. f University of Sheffield, Sheffield, Department of Psychology, Sheffield, United Kingdom g Universidad de Talca, Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Programa de Investigación de Excelencia Interdisciplinaria en Envejecimiento Saludable (PIEI-ES), Talca, Chile. h Universidad de La Frontera, Facultad de Educación, Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Temuco, Chile. i Universidad Católica del Maule, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Económicas, Talca, Chile. Received 5 September 2017; accepted 5 February 2018