Ansiedade e impactos nutricionais em estudantes universitários: uma revisão integrativa.

Abstract

Anxiety is a common emotional state to which individuals are subject when they go through some moment of emotion or nervousness in the face of specific situations, but this condition can become pathological to depend on frequency and follow-up by physical and/or psychological signs and symptoms, harming the subject the health term, individual and interpersonal relationships, an environment in which they live and in eating behavior. The university audience is one of the groups most likely to develop this type of disorder due to their daily routine, academic and social challenges daily faced, in addition to the distance from the family. The study aimed to summarize the knowledge evidenced in the scientific literature about anxiety and its possible implications on the eating behavior of university students. This is an integrative review of the literature, based on scientific articles present in the bases of the portal of CAPES journals, in Portuguese, between the years 2013 and 2019, using Bardin's categorization method (1977) to analyze the data. Through the content analysis of the articles, seven categories were elaborated, some with subcategories, to contemplate the objectives, characterized as: risk factors for anxiety in university students, where it was seen that the main ones are to be sex women, being away from home, university routine and inadequate quality of life, highlighting the first two as more prevalent in cases of anxiety; presence of anxiety disorders in university students, with a prevalence of moderate and severe levels of the disorder; main symptoms observed in university students, being highlighted sleep disorder, as the main symptom presented in cases of anxiety; health courses: possible influence on the emergence of anxiety, having some similarities with other areas, such as academic routine and extensive workloads, but with particularities such as the tension of dealing with human beings and even the small amount of practical activities, in addition to the greater demand for care services being made by health students; university aid in the face of anxiety, which showed the presence of some student care programs in institutions, in addition to their relevance in students' vision, according to the literature; university x anxiety: means of coping, there was a good part of alcohol and drug use, in addition to self-medication, but the search for therapies and other alternative means, such as leisure and social contact, have been growing considerably; impact of anxiety on university feeding, where it was possible to observe that students are eating more than average recommendations, that eating compulsions are generated by the anxiety to which they are subjected, which most often their food choice values highly caloric foods, and that such a fact (eating in excess tied food choices), is regarded as an escape valve in these situations. Given the results found, it is considered that more studies with university students, relating anxiety and food in an in-depth manner, should be performed to better understand how anxiety influences the eating of behavior students, in addition to the importance of using positive control strategies such as identifying risk situations, fractionate meals, controlling caloric intake and automatic thoughts.