Behavior of Food Habits in Students of an Educational Institution of Barranquilla

Abstract

Behavioral factors associated with food habits directly affect the development of applicable knowledge processes exercised by junior high school students. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the behaviors affecting the eating habits of students from an educational institution in Barranquilla from February 2018 to 2019, conduct a sociodemographic characterization of the study population and determine their eating behaviors. A total of 708 junior high school students were included in the quantitative, descriptive, and cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 426 ninth-grade junior high school students. Sociodemographic characteristics showed that the population of the District Educational Institution in Barranquilla predominantly consisted of females aged between 14 and 16 years. Moreover, the majority of these students reported that they always or sometimes had breakfast, and others indicated they never took a lunchbox to school. Most of the students reported eating salty and fatty foods at least once a day, whereas fruits are consumed only once a day, and vegetables are usually two or more times a day. We observed that students of the District Educational Institution in Barranquilla had poor food habits as evidenced by their high consumption of unhealthy foods.