Student Diet Practices: An NDSU Research Study on Alternative Diets

Sawyer Teicher, a graduate student in the Master of Nutrition and Exercise Science program at NDSU, ran a research study on college students’ relationship with fad diets. The study intended to identify patterns in how students view and participate in alternative dieting.

The survey closed on Tuesday, May 5, and was open to all enrolled NDSU students. As Teicher reviews the results, he hopes to better understand the relationship between participation in alternative diets and the way campus students perceive them.

Fad Diets

Fad diets, or alternative dieting, are diets that claim to result in immediate weight loss or health benefits. These diets focus on quick solutions to prior habits, often making them unrealistic. Additionally, these diets cannot be sustained for long periods of time, and regularly lack scientific evidence to support their claims.

Popular fad diets include low-carb or ketogenic diets, restrictive or crash diets and low-fat diets or high-protein diets such as the Dukan diet. These often restrictive approaches tend to be deficient in one nutrient or another, which can come with severe health complications. Most dietitians advise a nutrient-dense, whole-food diet that encompasses all essential nutrients.

Research Survey

The survey asked questions about nutrition, participants’ perceptions of these diets and whether they had tried any alternative diets. The survey also asked how long participants followed the diet, why they chose to and if they perceived it as healthy.

Teicher hopes to learn more about the habits of college students to better understand the education and thought processes behind these alternative diets.

Teicher’s Mission

“I believe that my research could have an impact, as there is a gap in this specific area. When doing my background research, there were not many articles that focused exclusively on fad or alternative diets in relation to college students,” Teicher said.

For the past five years, Teicher has studied at NDSU. Having earned his Bachelor of Science in Nutrition Science last year, he is set to graduate with a Master of Science in Nutrition and Exercise Science this summer.

When asked about why he chose alternative diets as his research topic, Teicher said, “Fad and alternative diets have always been something that interested me — particularly how popular they can become in such a short amount of time, especially with the rise of social media and wellness influencers. I wanted to know if these diets were popular among college students and what college students thought of them.”

He followed this up by explaining the importance of his study: “From my point of view, there is not a lot of research on this topic because it is generally accepted that these diets are popular because they promise fast results with often low amounts of effort. However, I believe that this is especially important to look into, as habits formed during someone’s college years typically form lifelong habits. By seeing if these diets are being followed, we can hopefully understand why.”

Following graduation, Teicher hopes to get accepted into the Nutrition and Exercise Science Ph.D. program here at NDSU. In the meantime, Teicher will continue to analyze the survey’s findings.

Research like Teicher’s could help researchers better understand the way young adults and college students approach dieting. The results from this study may help universities improve nutrition education and offer insight into how false nutrition information spreads. As quick-fix dieting becomes more common in today’s society, educators seek to better understand why these patterns emerge and how they influence long-term habits.

For those interested in helping fellow NDSU students and supporting their future careers, completing research surveys can be a meaningful way to contribute. Anyone interested in learning more about Teicher’s findings can reach out to him at sawyer.teicher@ndsu.edu.