Factors Influencing Food Consumption among University Students

Abstract

Vegetables and fruits are an important food component of a healthy lifestyle as it contains variety of nutrients. Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Malaysia has showed in the AgroFood Statistics Book 2014 that the commodity consumption of vegetables and fruits kilograms per year from 2008 to 2014 has consistently increase and expected to increase. Studies on factors influencing the consumption of vegetables and fruits are still lacking in Malaysia. There appears to be relatively scarce research and analysis concerning Malaysia. Research aims to identify the attitude of having fruits and vegetables among students of University Utara Malaysia (UUM) by adopting product, price, promotion, place and knowledge as variables. Data were collected using the questionnaire method studied using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22.0 application. Research was done to examine whether marketing mix factors, product, price, distribution, and knowledge affect the attitude of fruit and vegetable consumption among Universiti Utara Malaysia students. Findings indicates all the variables are significant except for knowledge on vegetables and fruits consumption. Hence, the accuracy of food intake in terms of the amount and the types of food consumed should be aware by the students.