Eating behavior and attitudes towards healthy food products among student youth analysis

Abstract

Formation of correct foundations of nutrition culture ensures preservation and strengthening of children's health, quality of human life, physical and mental health, life expectancy. Training of future specialists-technologists in the f ield of processing agricultural raw materials includes not only development of professional competencies, but also expansion of the field of knowledge in organization of rational nutrition as an element of everyday behavior affect ing human health. The study aims at comparing the student audience attitude to the diet formation before and after talks in the form of open lectures in the field of consumer literacy about food culture. The studies were conducted with one student audience in 2023 and 2024. During the research, the authors relied on the method of analyzing consumer judgments by conducting an anonymous survey in accordance with the requirements of GOST R ISO 10004 2020. We posted developed questionnaire on the Anketolog automated platform. According to the research results, respondents overestimated their attitude to the daily diet. The proportion of respondents considering breakfast as a must–have meal increased by 8 %. The respondents consuming French fries and sweetened carbonated drinks decreased by 6 and 9 %, respectively. The proportion of students introducing fruits in their snacks increased; 14 % of the surveyed girls and 3 % of boys changed their attitude to these products and included them in their snacks. The number of students rated their diet as sufficient has increased: 44 % of girls and 50 % of boys. Young people rational nutrition education demonstrated that all respondents began to note the connection between diet and health, while before the lectures and discussions, 7 % of respondents did not associate their health with nutrition. Conducting discussions about food culture can be considered as a possible direction for solving problems with insufficient infor mation about healthy eating, which will allow raising the content of educational programs to a higher level and, as a result, the level of knowledge, skills, and abilities in forming a healthy diet.