Knowledge,attitude and practices about breakfast among college students

Objective To examine breakfast-related knowledge,attitudes and practices (KAP) among college students and to provide evidences for promoting healthy dietary behavior in the students.Methods Two-stage random sampling was adopted in the study.First,329 students studying in different departments and at different grades were recruited in a university in Jilin city of Jilin province for a survey on knowledge and attitude about breakfast,and then 118 students were selected with simple random sampling for the survey on breakfast consumption using a self-designed questionnaire during March and May 2014.Results Most of the students knew the health importance of breakfast.The female students had a better status of breakfast-related KAP than the male students,with higher breakfast-related awareness rates for health importance (87.9% vs.75.0%),knowledge (45.2% vs.43.8%),nutritional concerns (48.8% vs.37.5%)and a higher ratio of having breakfast 5 days or more per week (79.3% vs.60.4%);while,the male students reported a significantly higher average breakfast energy intake than the female students (2 498.9±637.9 vs.1 941.4±588.1 kJ,P<0.05),but the energy intake of both the male and female students was lower than the recommended level.Among the students with lower breakfast energy intake than the recommended,the females had a higher ratio of underweight than the males (19.5% vs.5.3%,P<0.05).Conclusion The breakfast-related KAP should be improved and reasonable dietary patterns should be promoted among college students.