ASSOCIATION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE OF FOOD LABELS AND BODY MASS INDEX AMONG MEDICAL VS. NON-MEDICAL STUDENTS

Abstract

Background: The consumption of processed food has increased drastically over last few decades causing an increase in diet related non-communicable diseases and increased BMI specially among students. The processed food products have food labels which provide an insight to nutritional quality of food being consumed. These food labels may play a role to lower the intake of unhealthy foods, helping people to make intentional choices towards a healthy food intake. The type of education, either medical or non-medical, can significantly impact the ability to interpret the information on food labels and may affect the food choices. Objecti ve: To determine the difference between knowledge of food labels among medical and non-medical students and to determine the association between knowledge of food labels and BMI among both groups.

Materials and methods: A total of 241 participants were included in this study among them 121 were medical students and 120 were non-medical students. A validated questionnaire in form of Likert scale was used to assess the knowledge, attitudes and use of food labels. Fisher exact test was used to assess the difference in knowledge of food labels between both groups and spearman’s correlation was used to assess the association between knowledge of food labels and BMI.

Results: The comparison of knowledge of food labels between medical and non-medical students showed that medical students had higher knowledge of food labels (55.4%) than non-medical students (43.4%) with a p value of 0.041. Overall, statistically significant weak negative correlation (spearman’s correlation value of -0.151) was found between knowledge of food labels and BMI with p value of 0.019.

Conclusion: The study revealed that medical students had more knowledge of food labels than non-medical students. It further revealed that overall, there is weak correlation between knowledge of food labels and BMI.