Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas 76909, USA

Corresponding Author

Sangeeta Singg, Professor of Psychology, Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas 76909, USA, Tel: 1-325-223-8606, Fax: 1-325-942-2290; E-mail: sangeeta.singg@angelo.edu

Citation

Singg, S., et al. Depression Update and the Role of Nutritional Intake in Symptoms of Depression Experienced by Young College Students. (2016) J Clin Trials Pathol Case Stud 1(1): 6- 10.

Copy rights

© 2016 Singg, S. This is an Open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords

Abstract

  The objective of this study was to present an update on young adults’ depression in the United States and examine the role of nutritional intake of college students as a mediating variable in gender and depression relationship. Three hundred and five first- and second-year undergraduate students from an American regional southwestern university were administered the Demographic Questionnaire, Nutritional Intake Questionnaire (NIQ), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Of these 305 undergraduates, 116 met the research criteria for the study (18 - 26 years of age, middle-upper classes, not under treatment for depression or any other psychological disorder; not having any food restrictions, falling in the healthy/poor nutritional intake categories). A 2 × 2 (nutritional intake x gender) factorial Analysis of Variance results showed significant main effects of nutritional intake and gender on depression and a significant interaction between nutritional intake and gender with regard to students BDI scores. The post hoc pair wise comparisons revealed that only women with poor nutritional intake had significantly higher BDI mean score than men with healthy or poor nutritional intake and women with healthy nutritional intake. It was concluded that the variable of nutritional intake is an important variable to consider because it might be a mediating variable between the gender and depression link and that a poor nutritional intake might be a risk factor for depression in young college women. Furthermore, when the nutritional intake is healthy, young college men and women tend to experience only minimal symptoms of depression and two groups do not differ significantly in their depression levels.