Food Habits, Eating Behavior, and Nutritional Knowledge of High School Female Students

Abstract

Background: The lag between childhood and maturity known as adolescence is marked by physical, psychological, and social changes (Liao et al., 2015; Pender et al., 2015). Adolescents go through this crucial stage of development where they learn life skills, pick up healthy habits, and have more control over their health. Adolescents' health and wellbeing throughout life, as well as their life expectancy, are impacted by their health behaviors. Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the food habits, eating behavior, and nutritional knowledge of high school female students. Methodology: The descriptive correlational design, sometimes referred to as the simple correlational design, is a subtype of correlational study whose main goal is to analyze relationships between and among variables. Results: The study results exhibit that the clear majority have poor nutritional knowledge (n = 378; 98.4%), followed by those who have fair knowledge (n = 6; 1.6%). Concerning knowledge about food safety, most have poor knowledge (n = 268; 69.8%), followed by those who have fair knowledge (n = 112; 29.2%), and those who have good knowledge (n = 4; 1.0%). Regarding the knowledge about food safety and behavior, the clear majority have fair knowledge (n = 359; 93.5%), followed by those who have poor knowledge (n = 21; 5.5%), and those who have good knowledge (n = 4; 1.0%). Conclusion: Most students include in their meal patters junk food and refrain from healthful foods.   The majority are used to high-calory diet. The vast majority reported that they never eat fruit and vegetable every day. Recommendations: There is a need for the community health nurses to establish community-based interventions that aim to raise students’ health awareness of the meal patters, high-calory diet, eating fruits and vegetables, healthful proteins, deleterious effects of added sugar, fast food, eat breakfast, and drinking soft drinks.