Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of nutrition education on nutrition knowledge, dietary attitudes, and food behavior of college students. The subjects of this study were 350 college students attending a university. The education group students received nutrition education three hours per week during a 4-week period offered in a 'Home Economics' course. A total of 150 students in the education group and 200 students in the non-education group completed pre-test questionaires examining nutrition knowledge, dietary attitudes, and food behaviors. Major findings were as follows : nutrition knowledge, and food behavior of the education group were improved compared to the non-education group. But significant changes were not observed in dietary attitudes in the education group. There were higher correlations between nutrition knowledge and dietary attitudes score, and between dietary attitudes and food behavior score at the posttest than those at the pretest. These results suggest that nutrition education for college students can effectively improve their nutrition knowledge and food behaviors.

• Keywords: nutrition education; nutrition knowledge; dietary attitudes; food behavior; college students; pretest; posttest