Background: Lifestyle behaviours are usually formed during youth or young adulthood which makes college students a particularly vulnerable group that easily can adopt unhealthy lifestyle behaviour.

Aim: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore the influence of socio-demographic factors on Swedish university students’ lifestyle behaviours and self-rated health.

Method: Data were collected from a convenience sample of 152 students using questionnaires consisting of a socio-demographic section followed by previously well-validated instruments. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics: t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression tests.

Findings: The results of this study show that the lifestyle behaviours under study (physical activity, perceived stress and eating behaviours) as well as self-rated health can be predicted to a certain extent by socio-demographic factors such as gender, mother tongue and parents’ educational level. Male university students were shown to be physically more active than female students; the male students were less stressed and rated their overall health, fitness level and mental health higher. Female students were more prone to adopt unhealthy eating behaviours.

Discussion: This study addresses gender differences and their influences on lifestyle behaviours; it provides both theoretical explanations for these differences as well as presents some practical implications of the findings.

Aims: Through the review of relevant literature this study illuminates the concepts of social marketing and breastfeeding. It specifically discusses the positioning of the link between social marketing and breastfeeding within different fields of study and develops a theoretical framework that tries to bridge the gap between those disciplines.

Method: Various electronic databases were used and through systematic selection 11 scientific articles were identified that this literature review is based on.

Results: The review indicates that the relationship between social marketing and breastfeeding is complex. There are indications that this relationship is being investigated within three distinct fields of research: psychology/education, public health and marketing. Depending on the research field the emphasis is put on either breastfeeding or social marketing as well as on the other concepts that were discovered to be of importance within this relationship. Namely, group and individual demography as well as behaviour were revealed to be important elements of the link between social marketing and breastfeeding.

Conclusions: Based on the results this study concludes that a more multidimensional view on the relationship between the concepts under study is needed since the focus of previous studies is very one-sided and limited to just one element when all elements should be integrated equally.