Abstract:

Introduction:
Food waste has become a global concern, as it is estimated that one third of all food produced is lost. For this reason, universities have incorporated various sustainability strategies to minimize such waste. These strategies are broad and diverse, with different levels of action. To raise greater awareness of the problem, this year the Valencian Network of Healthy Public Universities Day focused on food waste under the slogan “Eating well is never a waste.” Within this framework, and to better understand the variables related to food waste, our objective was to design and validate a brief questionnaire with different dimensions and conduct a pilot study to obtain useful data for its subsequent application in sustainability education.

Methodology:
We conducted a pilot cross-sectional study at the University of Valencia by administering a healthy eating questionnaire that included a brief food waste–specific scale (so-called UniFoodW-Q). This 5-point Likert scale was designed by experts and validated through a test–retest procedure to assess reproducibility. Validity was determined through internal consistency analysis (Cronbach’s alpha) and comparison with other items in the general questionnaire. The initial scale consisted of 16 items distributed across three subscales: waste associated with cooking, food-related waste, and attitudes toward food preservation. It was administered cross-sectionally to 307 individuals (students and staff), with a subsample completing it twice. Additional variables associated with waste were also assessed through the general questionnaire.

Results:
The mean age was 22.0 ± 7.8 years, with most participants being women. Reproducibility was very good for the three subscales (correlation coefficients above 0.8). After removing two items, the additive scale showed good overall internal consistency (alpha 0.7). Higher scores were associated with greater involvement in minimizing food waste. Age was generally positively correlated, with older participants being more engaged. Regarding foods discarded during the previous week, the most frequent were fresh vegetables (30.7%), fresh fruit (26.1%), and bread (25.4%). We also found other interesting associations with lifestyle-related variables.

Conclusions:
The brief questionnaire designed (UniFoodW-Q) for estimating food waste dimensions in the university environment may be a useful tool for obtaining data and analyzing key associations with other variables, enabling its application in educational innovation for sustainability.

Keywords:

Food waste, sustainability, education.