Differences between nutritional knowledge and dietary habits of students in Faculty of Health Sciences and other university students

This study dwells on examining the effect of nutrition course on nutritional knowledge levels and dietary habits of students in Faculty of Health Sciences and other university students. A total of 348 students from Amasya University (183 Faculty of Education, 165 Faculty of Health Sciences) were recruited between February and March, 2019. The data on demographic characteristics of the participants as well as their dietary habits and nutritional knowledge levels were obtained through survey forms. The statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 22.0 software. The significance level was determined as p<0,05. Findings indicate that there is statistically significant relationship between department and the number of meals as well as skipping meal status (p<0,05). When the main meals skipped by the students are examined, it can be noted that 58,6% of students in Faculty of Education skip lunches, while 3,2% of them don't have dinners. On the other hand, 53,1% of students in Faculty of Health Sciences skip lunches, whereas 4,9% of them don't have dinner. Based on the findings, it can be noted that there is no statistically significant relationship between students' department and dietary habits. This finding can be explained by the fact that participants may not have transferred theoretical knowledge on nutrition into their daily dietary habits. The average means of nutritional knowledge scores of students in Faculty of Health Sciences were found as 76,65%, whereas it was calculated as 58,05% in students in Faculty of Education. In this sense, it can be noted that there is statistically significant relationship between students' department and knowledge levels on nutrition (p<0,05). Correspondingly, it can be argued that to some extent, nutrition course may have contributed to nutritional knowledge level of students in Faculty of Health sciences..