Study on Relationship of Socio Demographic, Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Fast Food Intake among University of Cyberjaya Medical Students

Abstract

Background and objectives: Fast food is defined as food which can be cooked quickly or is ready made to eat. Fast food restaurants have been mushrooming in all around the world even though fast food has been well known to have high amount of lipid, salt, sugar and food additives. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between fast food consumption in terms of socio demographic, knowledge, attitude and practice among medical students of University of Cyberjaya. Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in Faculty of Medicine students from University of Cyberjaya (UoC) using an online form using convenience sampling method. Data was analyzed using JASP software. Results: Overall, out of 393 respondents, the majority of them were female (66.9%), single (99.2%), Malay (53.4%) and Malaysian (96.7%). Almost half of the respondents take fast food 0 to 5 times per month (53.9%) and most frequently have it together with friends (43.8%). All of the respondents have a high level of knowledge on fast food and 91.6% of the respondents have a positive attitude for fast food. Our study also found that there is a significant association between knowledge score and attitude score about fast food and intake pattern (p <0.001, p = 0.008 respectively). We also found that race and estimated parent’s/caretaker/own monthly income have significant association with frequency of fast food intake (p = 0.003, p = 0.002 respectively). Besides, our study identified the significant factors that attract university students towards fast food is fast food being the first thought that comes into student’s minds and speed of fast food preparation is fast (p <0.001, p <0.001 respectively). Conclusion: The study result showed that the predominant factor that influences the university students to choose fast food at the very first line is their socio demographic factors.