A Study of Fast Foods Consumption Attitude among Secondary High School Students, Ardakan, Yazd, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Healthy and nutritional habits are formed and consolidated during adolescence. So this research has been done in Ardakan-Yazd province on high school students' attitude to fast food use.
 Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 200 students have been chosen by stratified sampling method and the data was collected by a questionnaire which approved its reliability and validity. All the descriptive data has been analyzed by SPSS 16 software through Chi-square experiment and ANOVA tests. 
 Results: The results of the experiment determined that 55% of the students were female, and 93% were single. The students' BMI was as follow: 22% thin (BMI< 18.5) 56% normal (18.5≤ BMI< 25) 14.5% overweight (25≤ BMI< 30) 6.5% fat (obese) (BMI ≥30).The female has a positive attitude to fast foods (P= 0.03). The mean attitude score for eating fast food in 17-18 years old group was more than 15-16 years old students (P= 0.001). The mean attitude score also showed that the single students were more eager to eat fast foods than the married students (P= 0.001)
 Conclusion: Most of the people who use fast foods are low educated, teenagers, youth and singles. On the other hand, social media like TV and radio and family has a significant effect on correct nutritional habits. So improving family's attitudes and educating students and teachers by social media can help in transferring data to the students and their teachers.