Two years ago a group of professors and researchers from the University of the Basque Country, in Spain, created an in-depth study to evaluate the practice of regular exercise and the dietary habits of a group of female Nursing students at the school.  Basically, what they wanted to understand was whether first year Nursing school students exercised and ate healthy, whether their habits changed over the course of four years in the school, and, most importantly, what effect on patients did the RNs' personal nutrition and exercise habits have.



The root of their question is an interesting one:  can a Nurse effectively and competently provide preventative physical exercise and nutritional counseling to their patients if they struggle or fail to practice what they preach in their own lives?

In a nutshell, here's what they did:

• They surveyed and analyzed a group of first year nursing students, a group of fourth year nursing students, and another group of non-nursing University students.
• They tracked a wide range of physical and nutritional habits and characteristics of every participant, and then classified everybody into three categories:   (1) Physically inactive or sedentary, (2) Irregularly or moderately active, and (3) Active.
• They tested and then reported how the Nursing students in each category fared in prescribing adequate physical exercise recommendations to patients.

Results were interesting.  For starters, the researchers found that the diets of the nursing students contained too much fat and protein, and too few carbs.  Shocking....bad eating habits at college!  (The researchers actually claim this must be due to the heavy school workload....c'mon now.) 

Researchers found that there was a progressive, significant increase in the percentage of students who could competently prescribe adequate nutritional and exercise counseling to patients from the Sedentary group to the Active group.  In other words, students with a higher level of their own personal physical activity were more aware of the importance of nutrition and healthy physical activity and better equipped to pass on that awareness to their future patients. 

We are all well aware that RNs can play an important role in the education, motivation and persuasion of their patients, especially the elderly or chronically ill, to initiate or continue a program to improve physical condition.  As the researchers noted, however, some studies show only 30% of RNs give specific recommendations about physical activity to their patients, despite the fact that more than 60% of the adult population does not engage in exercise at all.  In a separate poll that studied the perceptions of deans and medical directors of leading schools of medicine in the US, only 10% of respondents said their program's students could likely design an effective exercise prescription when advising patients.  Those are scary results.

At the end of the study, researchers made a recommendation for Nursing programs nationwide to place greater emphasis on the importance of physical exercise and adequate nutritional habits.  This would, they believe, lead to healthier RNs, who could, in turn, pass along competent recommendations to their patients. 

We couldn't agree more.  While it will be hard to gain momentum on affecting how college students eat (given all the booze, cafeteria food, and late-night eating), maybe Universities need to think about including Phys Ed and additional Nutrition classes into the Nursing curriculum?  Or maybe RNs should be encouraged to take kinesiology classes, or obtain a basic Personal Trainer certification.  The more we encourage students to adopt healthier behaviors, the more effective they will be at counseling their future patients.

Read more for yourself:  the full study can be accessed here.

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