Nutritional Knowledge among High School Male Students in Kuwait

Abstract

Objectives: High school male students in Kuwait enjoy, as others, fast and junk food for which perhaps reflect a possible deficiency in their nutritional knowledge. This study was conducted to explore the nutritional expertise among male high school students. Methods: One high school from each of the six governorates of Kuwait was randomly selected, and the upper three classes of each were given the questionnaire containing two sections. The first section assessed different socio-demographic and health-related characteristics. The second section included 39 exact/false type questions on nutritional knowledge. An overall dietary knowledge score was calculated based on the number of correct answers to questions regarding the nutritional expertise. Overall nutritional understanding and specific dietary domains knowledge scores were described using mean and 95% CI. Spearman correlation was used to find the association between different nutritional domain scores. Results: The highest score was related to a question concerning fibers. A significant medium correlation was observed between calories/food intake and carbohydrates domains. Nutritional knowledge of fibers domain was significantly associated with sodium, fats, and calories/food intake domains and a significant weak correlation of cholesterol with sodium domains. Conclusions: The nutritional knowledge of male high school students was low.