Nutrition Knowledge, Attitude and Practice: A Comparative Study between Female Undergraduate Students of Nutrition and Non - Nutrition Curriculum of Different Colleges of Kolkata, West Bengal

Introduction: Nutrition Plays a key role in promoting health. In order to remain healthy and physically active it is necessary to obtain good nutrition knowledge and implement it. Objective: The study was conducted to investigate the impact of nutrition knowledge on nutritional status and compare the same between student of food and nutrition and humanities departments. Method: A cross sectional study was conducted on female undergraduate students of Kolkata. A structured questionnaire was developed to assess nutrition knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP). Subject?s height, weight, waist and hip circumference were measured using standard procedures. Data was analysed using SPSS software. Result: Students from nutrition background had significantly higher nutrition KAP scores than their counterparts.59.64% students of non nutrition department did not know about Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA), 45% did not know about the concept of Body Mass Index (BMI), 73% students thought carbohydrate gave more energy than fat. Knowledge of RDA, knowledge about ill effects of junk food and knowledge of food groups was significantly associated with BMI status (P value 0.02, 0.009.0.019 respectively) Conclusion: This study showed that there is a strong association between student?s level of nutrition knowledge and their course curriculum which is consistent with previous studies. It can be concluded from the study that there is a need for nutrition education on the campus to bring awareness among students.