A Survey Of Nutrition Knowledge, Attitudes And Behavior Among Middle School Students In A District Of Zhoukou

Objective To study the nutritional status of middle school students in Chuanhui district of Zhoukou City, and to provide a basis for the targeted nutrition education programs developed following. Methods Total 1079 of students in three middle schools were selected by stratified-cluster random sampling and investigated through the questionnaire survey. Results The level of nutritional knowledge of 61.3% students was superior for the accurate rate of answers was greater than 80%, but 17% students'level was lower and their accurate rates were less than 60%. 95% students had active attitude who recognized the importance of diet on health and was willing to study more nutritional knowledge. 83.2% students'favorite way of obtaining nutritional knowledge was through TV, and then 49.7%,46.2% students'favorite ways of obtaining nutritional knowledge were through newspapers and books. 64.2% students had fussy eating habits. Fruits and meats were someone's favorite food, whereas bean products and vegetables were someone's boring food. Furthermore,31.6% students often eat snacks. The descriptions of snake were puffed food (51.3%), beverages (49.5%), sweets (46.6%), nuts (46.1%) and ice cream (42.1%). Only 63.3% could assure eating breakfast every day. The main variety of breakfast was grain. The proportions of students who usual eating eggs, vegetables and fruit, or dairy respectively were 65.1%,39.3% and 30.4%. More than half of students eat potatoes, meat products, dairy, soybean and nuts less than 2 times per week. The proportion of students who couldn't ensure intakes of vegetables or fruits everyday was respectively 45.5% and 69.6%. More than 10% of students had never eaten potatoes, dairy or nuts. Questionnaire total score in the good, in general, the proportion of poor students in three grades were 57.9%,34.9% and 7.2%. Questionnaire scores between students of different gender were no significant differences between students of different parental occupational Questionnaire scores were significantly different between the different parental educational; level scores of students at different ages were significantly different; student questionnaire scores between different age groups were significant difference. Conclusions Students in Chuanhui region of Zhoukou City had no enough nutritional knowledge. Unhealthy dietary habits were still common, such as fussy eating habits, snaking hobbits and no breakfast habits. Most students who had recognized the importance of diet on health had active attitude and was willing to study more nutritional knowledge. Consequently, nutritional knowledge preaching and unhealthy eating behavior correcting should be strengthened united parent in the following nutritional education programs.