Objective To examine the consumption of take-out food and the cognition on packaging safety of take-out food among university students in Dalian city for improving knowledge on potential health risk and environmental pollution caused by plastic packaging of take-out food.

Methods We conducted a self-administered anonymous questionnaire survey among 800 students selected in 4 universities in Dalian city using stratified cluster sampling in November 2017. SPSS 20.0 was used to process and analyze the data collected.

Results Of 766 students with eligible responses, 77.0% reported the consumption of take-out food. There was no significant gender difference in reported rate of take-out food consumption (P > 0.05); but the reported rate differed significantly among the students in different universities (P < 0.05), with the rate of 84.1%, 80.6%, 78.4%, and 65.8% among the students in medical, normal, financial, and science and engineering university (P < 0.05). Among the students, 86.0% were graded a score of less than 2 for a total scale of 8 for knowledge on packaging safety of take-out food; the boy students had a significantly higher mean score than the girl students (\bar x: 1.51 vs. 1.34, P < 0.05) and the mean knowledge score differed significantly among the students in different universities (P < 0.05), with the highest mean score of 1.58 and the lowest of 1.22 among the students in normal university and in science and engineering university. Of all the students, 95.0% reported the willingness to acquire knowledge about plastic packaging of take-out food and 82.0% expressed they would reduce the usage of disposable plastic packaging.

Conclusion The consumption of take-out food is prevalent but the cognition on packaging safety of take-out food is poor among university students in Dalian city, suggesting that health education on this issue needs to be conducted in the students.