Unhealthy dietary behaviours among college going youth in Delhi

Abstract

College students are widely reported to engage in unhealthy lifestyle behaviours including unhealthy eating behaviours such as high consumption of snack foods, high consumption of fast foods and insufficient consumption of fruit and vegetable.: This study was conducted in two randomly selected colleges of Delhi. A list of all colleges located in Delhi was made from which two colleges were selected randomly. A pre-tested, structured, semi-open ended questionnaire was used to collect information.: The study sample of 101 comprised of college going youth of Delhi of which 51 (50.5%) were female. The mean (± SD) age of respondents was 19 (± 0.9) years. The study found that 77.2%, 56.4% and 20.8% study participants do not eat fruits every day, do not eat vegetables every day and eat food items like French-fries etc. every day, respectively. The 38.6% study participants reported eating snacks every day between the meals. Participants who were not doing part-time job had significantly higher unhealthy dietary behaviours than participants with part-time job (p = 0.024). : The health promotion in terms of healthy dietary habits is needed among college going youth. College students should be encouraged to adopt healthy dietary habits and eat breakfast regularly.