ABSTRACT
Appetizing peculiarities are formed from childhood and can vary throughout life. Although they are conditioned by genetic factors, over time, the internal regulation of eating behaviors is reduced, being influenced by a complex interaction of various external factors. According to the Behavioral Susceptibility (BST) Theory of Obesity, Food Sensitivity in Response to Food Stimuli (such as Food Sight and Smell) and Satiety Responsiveness (i.e. the ability to adjust diet in response to internal feelings of satiety) contribute to individual differences in terms of energy intake and weight status. The present research intended to assess the eating patterns and behavior of Moldovan students, especially those from Technical University of Moldova during the social isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted, based on the questionnaires (AEBQ - Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire), on a group of 602 students from Technical University of Moldova. Participation in the survey was entirely voluntary, did not involve any invasive procedure, nor did it induce changes in participants' food patterns. The obtained results could contribute to the formation of the database for the study of the behavioral phenotype associated with the risk of obesity, but also for the study of eating behavior in crises. The questionnaire was distributed, in the form of a link, on the corporate emails of all TUM students. Respondents completed the questionnaire on the Google platform between 13.10.2021 - 25.11.2021, and the final database has been downloaded as a Microsoft Excel file. It was established a positive correlation between, Emotional Over-Eating and Emotional Under-Eating. Nervousness and anger were the most incriminating emotions of students that would cause both overeating and under eating. The results of the AEBQ questionnaire appear to be largely in line with previous studies, and the collected data present interest, in particular to prevent the risk of obesity.
ABSTRACT
Faced with the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, universities, as providers of higher education, have been forced to provide their students exclusively through a digital interface. For this, the institutions were challenged to select resources and platforms to support online education. The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates for research focusing on the impact and prediction of post-Covid evolution on education, in order to obtain adequate explanations for these challenges. The Technical University of Moldova (UTM) is the only technical higher education institution in the Republic of Moldova. TUM invests continuously in information technology infrastructure, as well as in the digital education of both students and academics. The aim of the study is to evaluate the university potential, from the perspective of digital technologies, in providing now, but also in the future, e-Learning. The most dominant form of providing learning content to TUM, during the pandemic, was online lectures via real-time video conferencing, which is confirmed by the continuous increase in the number of active MTeams users. And e-Learning did not negatively influence students’ learning. The obtained results show that TUM has demonstrated its potential to ensure the continuity and good development of the teaching process during the pandemic, maintaining the good quality of studies. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.