Factors affecting the changes in meat and meat product consumption of high school students: A logistic regression analysis

Abstract

Protein malnutrition remains a challenging and unresolved health problem among young children in Sri Lanka. This paper aimed to explore the impact of socio demographic attributes on meat and meat product consumption of young children and the factors that affect to change meat and meat products consumption. A total of 387 students aged 17-18 y from different subject streams in Kandy district, Sri Lanka were interviewed using a pretested structured questionnaire. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the socio-demographic factors. All factors possibly influencing meat and meat product consumption pattern were summarized into six factors (monetary, nutritional, health, quality, animal welfare, and advertising) using principal component analysis. Ordinal logistic regression analysis was performed for the linear combination of the above six principal components to investigate how those components affected the changes in meat and meat product consumption. The majority of students (82%) consumed both meat and processed meat products and chicken meat had the highest preference (75%) among the meat-eaters followed by beef (25.3%), pork (14.7%), and mutton (9.0%), respectively. Knowledge on meat quality standards, family income, and religion was the dominant socio-demographic factors that affected meat and meat product consumption (P<0.01). The majority of high school students (91%) were in the normal range of body mass index (18.5-24.9). Monetary and advertising factors had a positive and negative impact (odds ratio=1.66 and 0.70) on the changes in meat and meat products consumption, respectively (P<0.01). Proper maintenance of meat quality and further research and development on nutritional aspects targeting healthier meat and meat products could lead to change in the perception of meat consumption of young school children in Sri Lanka.