Addressing the emotional health of college students through a therapuetic cooking class

This study hypothesized that a unique cooking class, focusing on cooking and mindful eating to reduce stress, had the potential to improve the emotional health of college students. Cooking meals is shown to improve physical health, but there is a limited amount of research tying cooking skills to emotional wellness (Hartmann, Dohle, & Siegrist, 2013). This study evaluated the effectiveness of two lessons focusing on emotional health through mindful eating and cooking as a mechanism to cope with stress. The aim was to determine if students' emotional states would be improved after each lesson. Participants we rerecruited for the Thrive group or the basic nutrition group. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) and The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) were distributed to both groups during the first week of the semester for a nutrition course to evaluate confounding variables in the Thrive group. The Thrive group took The Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) before and after each cooking class to evaluate the effectiveness of the lessons on the mood of participants. Results were not significant for any of the measures when comparing differences between the cooking and basic nutrition group. The results suggest participants may experience a decrease in negative affect after each lesson. Further research with adequate sample sizes is needed to understand the potential role of cooking classes in addressing emotional health.