1. Introduction
Rational nutrition and proper diet are the main pillars of a healthy lifestyle and, together with sports activity (SA), they have a significant impact on the health of adolescents [
1]. Rational nutrition affects the physical and mental performance of a person. A proper daily dietary regimen and rhythm also has a preventive effect against some diseases [
2]. Adequate food choices and good eating habits are essential for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and for the health of the youth [
3,
4,
5]. However, the nutritional habits of university students pose a significant threat to their lifestyle. University is considered a high-risk-factor environment in terms of urging undergraduates to eat disorderly [
6,
7]. The nutritional risks specific to university students are alarming to the extent that unhealthy eating habits constitute one of the six biggest health risks for the students [
8]. The transition to an independent way of life by entering university can be very stressful and can affect food choices and dietary patterns [
9,
10], and this is particularly the case if the university students are living away from home [
11]. Physiological and psychological factors in dormitories can lead to disordered eating, including swapping roles and duties, lack of exercise, self-service canteens, and the availability of simple foods [
12,
13]. In addition, due to the lack of time associated with the amount of studying, many students are forced to eat in a hurry and therefore largely prefer the consumption of fast food with high calorie content and low nutritional value [
13,
14]. Adolescent eating habits are characterised by high consumption of sweets and sweetened soft drinks, skipping breakfast, and low consumption of fruits and vegetables [
14,
15]. According to several authors [
7,
14,
15,
16,
17], breakfast omissions, fast food, sweet drinks, and an unbalanced diet are the main food patterns in this population group.
Several experts in Slovakia [
18,
19,
20,
21], Poland [
22,
23], Serbia [
24], Spain [
15], and Norway [
25], as well as in distant countries such as Colombia [
26], Turkey [
27], Australia [
28], the USA [
29], and China [
16,
17,
30], have pointed out the inappropriate eating habits and poor dietary regime of university students. Nonetheless, irregular eating habits and negative views of body weight have their roots even before entering university [
12,
31,
32].
There are many factors that influence students’ health behaviour in relation to diet, but to change their eating habits, it is necessary to understand some basic requirements in relation to nutrition, whether it is education in making healthier food choices or their ability to apply this knowledge in practice [
33].
The studies regarding the impact of nutritional education on the dietary habits of university students are inconsistent. Several studies have disclosed that nutritional education can change students’ eating habits and food choices [
10,
34], while others have not reported a significant correlation between these variables [
35]. It is usually difficult to distinguish between the effect of diet and the effect of SA. According to Hendl and Dobrý [
36], it is typical for physically active individuals to eat a healthier diet. According to the authors, SA is also the most important factor for eliminating some of the negative effects of poor nutrition.
In terms of gender differences, there is generally a higher presumption of healthy eating and healthy habits in women, with men showing less interest in obtaining nutrition and health improvement counselling [
37]. In addition, female students are more concerned about changing their eating habits than males. On the other hand, women’s negative perception of their own figures, additionally influenced by their environment and TV commercials, can lead to eating disorders, poor eating habits, various diet plans, dietary adjustments, or even skipping meals. For this reason, our sample consisted particularly of female university students, anticipating significant differences between physically active and inactive students. The weekly frequency of sports activity was decisive in this work in order to emphasise the importance and relevance of regularly performed sports activities in relation to the selected lifestyle factors and health status of university freshmen.
The aim of this research was to identify the eating habits of female university students in eastern Slovakia and to analyse this information in reflection of their weekly sports activity.
4. Discussion
The aforementioned findings regarding the low representation of SA in the lifestyle of female university students at two major universities in eastern Slovakia correspond with several studies that point to the insufficient SA of university students across Europe [
41,
42,
43,
44,
45]. The results of this study seem more optimistic when compared to the 2018 Eurobarometer on adult sport and physical activity, which revealed that up to 49% of Slovaks and 46% of Europeans do not participate in sports and 23% exercise only occasionally (EU 14%); [
46]. However, our study differs from other similar studies in terms of the research tools used, as well as the evaluated parameters and methodology. Therefore, the limitations of this study regarding the comparison of the results need to be taken into account.
At first glance, worse results for SA participation than in our study were observed in students from Germany [
47], Czech Republic [
48], Romania [
49], and Canada [
50]. On the contrary, a lower percentage of inactive female students was found in Poland [
22], as well as in other studies in the Czech Republic [
51] and Hungary [
52]. The lower SA of university students can be explained by time constraints, among other factors, as was found in Saudi Arabia [
53], Delhi [
23], Poland [
41,
54], Czech Republic [
55], and Slovakia [
56,
57,
58]. However, these time constraints are not necessarily the result of an excessive workload required by universities. They can also be caused by the students’ part-time jobs to pay for their study expenses [
54]. Awadalla et al. [
53] also found some students who reported personal factors such as lack of motivation to participate in SA, weak or no information about the benefits of SA, or lack of sports facilities in their residential area. For a substantial part of university students, the insufficient SA regime is not the result of physical disability but rather indolence and a lack of relevant information [
56,
59].
In terms of rational nutrition and the prevention of fat metabolism disorders, some authors recommend dividing the daily energy intake into at least five meals [
15,
60,
61]. It has been hypothesised that eating small, frequent meals enhances fat loss and helps to achieve better weight maintenance. A number of observational studies lend support to this hypothesis, with an inverse relationship noted between the frequency of eating and adiposity [
62]. The authors evaluated the effects of differing meal frequencies on body composition by conducting a meta-analysis. The primary novel and important findings of the analysis are that increased feeding frequency appeared to be positively associated with reductions in fat mass and body fat percentage as well as an increase in fat-free mass. However, sensitivity analysis of the data showed that the positive findings were largely the product of a single study, casting doubt as to whether more frequent meals confer beneficial effects on body composition. These results have important implications with respect to the popular suggestion that eating small, frequent meals is the preferred method for optimising weight management in the general population.
Frequent meals and a short time between meals accelerate metabolism during the day, with the exception of time spent sleeping [
63]. Thus, those who eat smaller portions but more often during the day may have a metabolic advantage over those who eat less frequently but larger portions [
61]. Consuming a large number of calories in a single serving will increase the absorption of nutrients into the blood, including glucose. Its higher level will cause the secretion of insulin, which causes adipose tissue to also become more sensitive to insulin at higher doses. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain an approximately constant blood glucose level [
64]. Such condition can only be maintained by eating regularly, with the breaks between meals being not too long. However, the evidence to support this theory is rather inconclusive. Consuming more calories in a single meal may in fact lead to increased obesity due to increased post-meal synthesis and fat storage, which negatively affects the amount of body fat [
61]. The above recommendation—eating meals 5–6 times a day—is followed by more than a fifth of respondents, while with an increasing frequency of SA during the week, the number of female students who eat this way increases. Less than 10% of female students report eating 1–2 times a day. In this context, such a low frequency of food intake may not be perceived as unfavourable to their health. Recently, some studies have examined the benefits of skipping certain foods, called “intermittent fasting (IF)” [
65]. IF involves restricting the daily intake of food for the period of 6–8 h, whilst the person consumes only certain foods in limited quantities during the rest of the day. When IF is combined with exercise on an empty stomach, the positive benefits to the body will intensify [
66]. From our experience in creating and implementing exercise programmes for women of all ages, we can argue that female students will omit meals rather than implement a weight loss strategy but many times without controlling the nutritional values of their meals. In general, women are more likely to maintain their energy balance, but they also tend to overestimate their body weight and often perceive their bodies incorrectly. These results were also obtained by several authors [
28,
67,
68,
69,
70].
As in other areas concerning lifestyle, there is no universal nutrition consensus in terms of the effects of eating frequency on the human body and health indicators. Eating is a category of behaviour that, to a lesser extent than alcohol consumption, smoking, or SA, depends on one’s personal choices and decisions [
23]. According to the authors, eating habits are formed by many factors influenced by the place of residence during the study, daily programme, current budget, and the use of university canteen [
69]. The diet itself is influenced by many factors—different ways of eating, the type of food, and the actual frequency of meals, including breaks between meals. All of this may lead to different classifications and may affect the findings of the study. Nonetheless, our results showed that a higher frequency of SA is positively related to a higher daily frequency of meals, which may be important in determining or shaping the habits of university students.
The distribution of the daily calorie intake is important in terms of the energy balance [
25]. As was expected, female university students eat the largest amount of food at lunch. This applies to all subgroups of the SA in our study. These results are in line with the recommendation that lunch should cover 40–50% of the daily energy consumption [
21]. However, it is essential to know the right time to eat lunch, because eating late will result in a poor diet. Our results suggest better eating habits in female students who regularly participate in SA with a frequency as low as once a week, although we found significant differences only between the female students who participated in sports 3 or more times a week and students who do not participate in SA or participate only irregularly. Our research also found a relatively high percentage of university students who consume the largest amount of food in the evening, especially in the group of inactive and irregularly active students. For the female students who participate in sports regularly once a week, this percentage was significantly lower. The reason may be the participation in SA in the evening, which forces the students to consume food well in advance of exercise or to consume less food towards the end of the day. This may be related to an awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, which includes participation in SA and healthy eating habits [
71]. On the other hand, reporting dinner as the most voluminous meal of the day in terms of the amount of food is not uncommon. The students who participated in a study at the Technical University in Prague stated that dinner was usually the only complete meal for which they had time [
4].
In their senior year, the students’ daily routine changes. This means that the students sleep later than before. Having the vigilance required in order to study and work hard until late at night requires consuming enough calories to withstand this onslaught, without craving extra food late at night. Only a small number of the female students involved in the research said that they did not eat dinner, which is a positive finding because the absence of dinner will cause the body to be without energy for a long time, as energy is not received during sleep. This can slow down the metabolism and increase the tendency to store body fat. In the past, restricting or avoiding food before bedtime had been proposed as a strategy for weight management, as well as an approach to improving health [
72,
73]. However, these results may not be consistent if the food selection is changed in order to prefer low-energy and/or macronutrient foods, up to 200 kcal [
74,
75,
76,
77]. The results of our study showed that most female students who do not eat dinner participate in SA 3 or more times a week. However, the differences are insignificant, compared to other groups. The absence of dinner can be the result of a wrongly perceived lifestyle, which includes avoiding food intake before bed. An appropriate time for dinner seems to be 3–4 h before bedtime, which according to the study is followed by almost 60% of students. Dinner time within 3 h before bedtime significantly increases the risk of gastrointestinal problems and the incidence of stomach cancer (a 7.4-fold increased risk). Biologically, a short space of time between dinner and bedtime may reduce gastric motility and cause delayed gastric emptying, resulting in food retention in the stomach [
78]. Conversely, with an earlier dinner, the nocturnal pH is higher than with a later dinner [
79]. For this reason, an earlier dinner may be useful in conditions where low acidity in the stomach is desired. On the contrary, the benefits of an overnight nutrient supply can play a key role in sports nutrition, in the search for optimal body composition and improved performance [
72]. Additionally, an intake of slow-release proteins in the correct composition shortly before bedtime can improve post-exercise regeneration [
80].
In general, provided that the last meal of the day does not involve the largest amount of food and the frequency of eating 5 to 6 times a day is met, it is not advisable to eat the last meal more than 2 h before bedtime, but it is also not advisable to not dine at all [
23]. It is ideal to combine dinner with mild SA. For example, a walk after dinner brings beneficial effects and leads to mental relaxation, which increases the ability of the immune system to fight certain diseases [
78].