Knowledge and Perceptions of Obesity Prevention and Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables among High School Girl Students in Shahr-e-kord

Background: Obesity is a major public health issue and the prevalence has increased in both the industrialized and developing world. Fruit and vegetable intake has been proposed to protect against Obesity. The purpose of this paper was to assess knowledge and perceptions of obesity prevention and consumption of fruits and vegetables among high school girl students in Shahr-e-kord.
Methods: This descriptive- cross-sectional survey was done on 308 high school girl students, aged 13-14 years, who were selected, based on a simple random selection method from eight schools. Data collected using a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) and researcher-made Questionnaire were based on Health Belief Model. Finally, data collected were analyzed by SPSS16.
Results: The findings showed the mean score of knowledge was 39.14±20.40, perceived susceptibility: 31.65±16.40, perceived severity: 36.31±20.02, perceived benefit: 42.69±19.55 and perceived barriers was 40.50±18.59. There was a statistically significant and direct relationship between knowledge and perceived susceptibility and perceived benefit. The number of consumed units per day for fruits was 1.42 and the number of consumed serving per day for vegetables was 1.46. Also there was a statistically significant and indirect relationship between BMI of students with fruit and vegetables intake.
Conclusions: The low level of appropriate practice of fruit and vegetable consumption by students in the study area needs to be improved by health workers and teachers via the mass media, health talks and one-on-one health education of students.