Dietary habits and nutritional knowledge among high health institute students in Basrah

Introduction: Nutrition is vital for the maintenance of health and prevention of disease. The burden of nutrition-related chronic diseases (such as CVD, cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis) and obesity is increasing rapidly world-wide. Nutritional knowledge may play a pivotal role in the adoption of healthier food habits but it must be noted that knowledge on its own cannot bring about the desired changes due to the complex nature of food behavior.OBJECTIVE: It was to assess dietary habits and nutritional knowledge of the high health institute female students in Basrah and the relationship between nutritional knowledge and socio-demographic factors.Methods: Seventy eight female students of the high health institute were administered a special questionnaire form regarding their dietary habits and nutritional knowledge.Results: The majority of the students 82.1% were in the age group < 24 years old. The mean body mass index (BMI) was (23.56 kg/m²) however twenty three students were classified as overweight. Academic study was the main source of information for 56.4% of the students. The mean survey scores were 70.78% for dietary habits and 73.32% for nutritional knowledge. No statistical significant association was found between dietary habits and nutritional knowledge. A significant association was found between the students’ BMI and their nutritional knowledge level (p<0.05). The level of knowledge consistently decreased with the increase in BMI. Much like habits and knowledge, none of the other association between other variables (age, place of residence, paternal education level) showed any statistical significance.Conclusions: Important point observed in the present study was that though the students had good level of nutritional knowledge and dietary habits, the association between them was not statistically significant. It may be suggested that the adequate nutritional knowledge observed may not have translated into the appropriate dietary habits in the students