The Level of Knowledge of Fast Food among Student of Preparatory Year at King Saud University

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University

Abstract

This study aims to determine knowledge level of preparatory year students in King Saud University in Riyadh, that governs fast foods to identify the most appropriate extension ways to aware them of the effects of eating these kinds of foods and study the correlation relationship between the personal quality of the respondents as independent variable and their level of knowledge as dependent variable.
A questionnaire has been distributed among the students of the preparatory year in KingSaudUniversity. The total number of the population of the study is 2570 student. The size of the sample has been identified according to Stephen Thompson equation that showed when applied to the study population that the sample’s size is 372 students. The data was analyzed by using statistical package for social science (SPSS).
The research consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction. Chapter two shows the literature review. Chapter three shows the methodology of the study. Chapter four shows the results of data analysis and the discussion of these results. Finally, chapter five includes the summary of the study, the findings, recommendations, bibliography and appendix.
1-Preparatory year students proprieties:
The findings show that the majority of respondents come from large families ( 6 members and more ) this represent 70.9 % of the sample. 92.2 % of them are Saudi, and it indicates that most of the parents are high educated, 65.6 % of the fathers are university graduates while 48.1% of mothers are university graduates. As it evidenced by the results, 95.7% of the fat hers are employees or retirees, while the percentage drops to 36.8% among mothers. The data also indicates that 50% of the respondents families have a house made. The results also showed that
the monthly income of 75.8 % of the respondents  families is 10000 SR or more while 24.2% of the respondents families monthly income is less than 10000 SR. The results turned out that 36.6% the students live in the north of Riyadh, while 29% live in the east of Riyadh and the rest distributed between the south and the west of Riyadh.
Lunch is the main meal for most for about 69.7% of the students. Most of the student mainly depend on the university monthly grant for about 90.8%  of them. The result shows that about 81.5% of the respondents practice sport.  The results shows that 54.9% of the respondents  eat fast food constantly while those who eat fast foods some times are about 43.8%, and those who don’t eat fast foods are about1.3%. The results indicated that 46.6% of the respondents consume 6 to 9 meals per week, which is consider very high rate of consuming. 26.7 % eat 6 or less meals a week while 14.7% eat less than 3 meals a week. The results showed that 59.1% of the respondents prefer eating fast food with friends while 26.7% eat it with families.      
2- The preparatory year students’ knowledge level of fast food:
The observations that carried out by the results of the study showed that the respondents have high cognitive level with the affects of fast food, this has been represented in the average  which respectively score 2.57 degrees and Standard deviation score 0.295 in the triple scale, (3=yes, 2= don’t know and 1= No) degrees this shows that most of the sample knew the characteristics and effects of junk food.
The results indicated that the samples to some extent do not know in details the components of these foods and their raw materials.
3- Identifying ways and means of extension that consider more suitable in rising the awareness of students with fast food: 
The results showed that an average degree of the student agree with the idea of identifying certain ways of extension reach 3 to 2.6 while those who prefer methods like families scored a degree between 3 to 2,75and those who prefer ways like social media and mobile messages score a degree of 1.
Recommendations:
1- Planning and implementation of a comprehensive and specialized outreach programs to increase the level of knowledge of the components and characteristics of fast foods for the students of the preparatory year with a focus on areas in which the results of the study indicated the presence of a knowledge level is low, such as: useful food, high salt in fast foods, and the use of oils lower quality in restaurants, low nutritional value in them..
2-Use the ways and means that indicate what the preparatory year students favored by the results of the study, a family, you tube video, and Internet sites, and Twitter, TV programs, to Increase their knowledge of fast food.
3- Study the reasons behind the gap between the level of knowledge of fast food and the behavior of students associated with eating it when it.

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