“Assess the Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Health Effects on Consuming the Processed Foods among the Nursing Students”

Abstract

Background and

Objectives. There are many potential health effects of ultra processed foods, including Increased cancer risk. A five-year study of over 100,000 people found that every 10 percent increase in consumption ofultra processed food was associated with a 12 percent higher risk for cancer.Too much sugar, sodium and fat. Heavily processed foods often include unhealthy levels of added sugar, sodium and fat. These ingredients make the food we eat taste better, but too much of them leads to serious health issues like obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Lacking in nutritional value. Heavy processing strips many foods of their basic nutrients, which is why many foods today are fortified with fiber, vitamins and minerals. Calorie dense and addicting. It’s very easy to overindulge in unhealthy food and consume more calories than we realize. For example, an Oreo cookie contains about 50 calories, while an entire cup of green beans is only 44 calories. Processed foods like these are also designed to stimulate our brain’s “feel-good” dopamine center, making us crave more of them in the future. Quicker to digest. Processed foods are easier to digest than unprocessed, whole foods. That means our bodies burn less energy (hint: calories) digesting them. It’s estimated we burn half as many calories digesting processed foods compared to unprocessed foods. This fact combined with the calorie density of processed foods in general can make it easy to pack on the pounds. Full of artificial ingredients. There are about 5,000 substances that get added to our food. Most of them have never been tested by anyone other than the company using them. That includes additives to change color, texture, flavor and odor as well as ingredients like preservatives and sweeteners. Objectives:- The objectives are as follows 1] To Assess the knowledge regarding processed foods and its effects on health 2] To Assess the Attitude of students towards processed foods consumption and its effects on health. 3] To Find the correlation between Knowledge and Attitude regarding processed foods consumption and its effects on health. 4] To find the association between Knowledge Score with their selected socio- demographic variables. 5] To Find the association between Attitude score with their selected socio- demographic variables.

Methods:- The research approach adopted for the study was a Quantitative survey approach. Research design was Descriptive Correlational research design. The samples were selected for the study included 90 nursing students studying in D. Y. Patil College of Nursing by using nonprobability purposive sampling technique. Structured knowledge and attitude questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and attitude of nursing students regarding Processed Foods & its effects on health. The study was conducted on 01/01/2025

Result: Majority (73.33%) of the students had average, 21.11% had poor and 5.5% had good level of knowledge related to Processed foods consumption and its effects on health. Majority (66.6%) of students had positive attitude towards stoppage of consumption of Processed foods, and 33.3% of them had negative attitude towards stoppage of consumption of Processed foods..significant association between Knowledge scores with their selected socio-demographic variables at pr0.05 level of significance. There was no significant association between Attitude score and their selected socio demographic variables. The Calculated Chi-square values was lesser than tabulated value at p<0.05 level of significance. This indicated that there was no significant association between Attitude scores with their selected socio-demographic variables at p<0.05 level of significance. Interpretation and Conclusion The overall findings shows that the majority of nursing students had average knowledge and positive attitude regarding processed foods consumption & its effects on health and there was an significant association between knowledge score and socio-demographic variables but there was no significant association between attitude score and socio-demographic variables. There was also an significant correlation and association between knowledge and attitude.