Date of Completion

2021

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Health Sciences

Thesis Type

Honors College

First Advisor

Lizzy Pope, PhD, RD

Second Advisor

Susan Kasser, PhD

Third Advisor

Mattie Alpaugh, RD

Keywords

cooking, stress, college, students

Abstract

College is full of new experiences and pressures that may prevent students from having adequate cooking skills and knowledge, which often leads to increased stress. An intervention designed to improve cooking ability may reduce students’ stress levels by increasing their understanding surrounding food, and decreasing the time and effort needed to prepare meals. For this study, participants were randomly assigned to one of four intervention groups: cooking classes and meal kit, cooking classes only, meal kit only, and control. Phase 1 consisted of weekly cooking classes for six weeks, where the participants actively prepared a recipe and engaged in a sensory analysis of the food. Phase 2 consisted of a 6-week meal kit intervention, where participants were provided with a recipe and ingredients for three meals, for six weeks. Participants completed the Perceived Stress Scale questionnaire at the start of the intervention and at the end of each phase. Neither the cooking, nor the meal kit intervention reduced perceived stress levels among the participants. Further research is needed to determine whether a cooking-based intervention has the ability to reduce stress levels in college students.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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