A Study on the Effects of Nutritional Awareness and Attitude on Rural Households’ Food Security Level (The Case of Zanjan County)

The main purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of nutritional awareness and attitude on rural households’ food security level in Zanjan County. The statistical population of the study was 25864 rural household heads of Zanjan County among which 353 persons were selected using a stratified sampling method with proportional allocation. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. A panel of experts at University of Zanjan confirmed the face validity of the questionnaire. Additionally, the construct validity (including convergent, divergent, and nomological validity) and composite reliability of the research instrument were obtained by estimating measurement model and after making necessary corrections. The data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS software. The descriptive results of the research showed that the level of food security for the majority of respondents was low. Moreover, the results of the structural equation modeling revealed that two variables of nutritional awareness and nutritional attitude and its components including food hygiene, food safety and health, nutritional value and food price and quality had positive and significant effects on rural household heads’ food security level explaining about 68 percent of its variances. Based on the findings of this research, it can be concluded that improving villagers’ nutritional attitude and awareness, especially by providing them with the necessary educations is one of the basic preconditions for increasing food security among them.