KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS FAST FOOD AND THEIR CORRELATION WITH BODY MASS INDEX AMONG STUDENTS OF INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS IN TAIF, SAUDI ARABIA
Lotfi Fahmi Issa1,2 and Ali H.S. Alzahrani2
1Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt 2Community Medicine Department, College of Medicine, Taif University, Saudi Arabia
Background: Fast food has become an important part of the diet of Arab Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the frequency of fast food intake in these countries is relatively high, especially among adolescents. Aims of the study: To assess knowledge and attitudes of intermediate school students towards fast food and to determine correlation of knowledge and attitude to body mass index (BMI). Subjects and methods: A cross sectional approach was conducted and 520 male students were selected by multistage cluster sampling technique from all intermediate schools in Taif city. A structured questionnaire included questions related to socio-demographic characteristics (age, grades, nationality, etc), knowledge (meaning fast food, causing damage to health or overweight and obesity, etc), and attitudes ( fast food is not good for health, cause overweight or obesity or contains more calories, etc) of students towards fast food was used to collect data. Knowledge and attitude scores were calculated. Weight and height were measured and BMI was calculated and categorized according to WHO classification. Results: Out of 520 male students selected, 500 (96.2%) responded. Fast food knowledge and attitude scores among students were 62% and 72.7%, respectively. However, fast food knowledge was more among students with increasing age (p=0.02) or students with high level educated parents (p=0.001). Furthermore, a significant positive correlation between knowledge and attitude was found (r=452, p=0.000). Moreover, a weak positive but insignificant correlation was found between knowledge and underweight, overweight and obesity indices. Also, insignificant weak positive association was found between attitude and overweight and obesity indices. Conclusion: Knowledge and attitude scores among intermediate school students were good. Further studies of large samples representing gender as well as health education program on fast food and their health consequences are highly recommended to the students and their families.
December 2013