食文化創造都市における農学系大学生の食生活の実態と課題

概要

Tsuruoka City in Yamagata Prefecture was certified as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy in 2014. The Faculty of Agriculture, Yamagata University(FAYU), located in the same city, provides practical training that is integrated with agricultural production at the University Farm. The purpose of this study was to understand the actual eating habits of students at FAYU and to discuss future issues that FAYU should consider in order to support the independence of students’ eating habits. As a result of a questionnaire survey using the Internet, 153 out of the 463 selected students provided answers. The results were as follows: 92.2% of the students live alone; 24.5% skip breakfast (which is higher than the national average); only 32.2% prepared food at home daily with 67.5% using local ingredients.; 95.4% used the university shop and even though their frequency of use was high, 43.8% of students would prefer improvements in the variety of food offer and finally only 33.6% of students used the university cafeteria and they would like to see improvements in the variety of menu types (including the use local ingredients in its menu), prices, and more flexible business hours. In the future, it is necessary for FAYU to hold cooking classes for students, to assist students with training programs on how to cook by themselves, and to support the independence of their eating habits. The university shop needs to sell food that is considered to have a good nutritional balance and the university cafeteria needs to review its menu and price, taking into consideration the nutritional balance.