ASSESSMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTISE ABOUT PROCESSED SNACK FOOD AMONG ADOLESCENT OF SELECTED SCHOOL OF DHARAN, NEPAL.

Abstract

The aim of this research work was to access the knowledge, attitude and practice about packaged snack foods among selected schools of Dharan municipality A cross sectional qualitative study was carried out among 192 adolescents of age group 10-19 years of two different schools with structured questionnaire to access the knowledge, attitude, and practice of processed snack foods among adolescents of Dharan municipality. The schools and adolescents were selected on the basis of simple random sampling. The knowledge section comprised of 5 questions, attitude section comprised of 8 questions and practice section comprised of 9 questions. Knowledge, attitude and practice were categorized as adequate and inadequate on the basis of value lying below and above the median. Anthropometric measurements were used to determine BMI z scores. Microsoft excel and IBM SPSS version 26 software were used for data entry and analysis. Chisqare was used to establish relationship between different variables under study. The mean age of respondent was 13.72 ±1.80. The study revealed that 57.3% of the study participants were male and 42.7% were Female. The study revealed that 41.7% had adequate knowledge whereas 58.3% had inadequate knowledge, 47.9% had positive attitude whereas 52.1% had negative attitude, 49% had good practice whereas 51% had bad practice regarding processed food consumption. The main factor driving the processed snack food consumption was its taste. The main consideration while buying processed snack food was its taste. The most preferred processed snack food was noodles. There was no significant association between knowledge score and practice score. There was no significant association between knowledge score and attitude score. Despite adequate knowledge and positive attitude every student practiced processed snack food consumption. More than half students had inadequate knowledge, negative attitude and bad practice which shows that there is lack of awareness about processed snack foods among adolescents. So, the government and schools should collaborate in creating awareness programs about processed snack foods to minimize consumption.