Consumption of Fast Foods and Their Related Factors in the Women Referring to Healthcare Centers of Bojnord City Based on the Social Cognitive Theory

Nutrition habits and culture is one of the important constituents of the food patterns in every society. Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) provides a framework for behavior recognition in the family context. According to this theory, nutritional behavior is influenced by the individual and environmental factors. This study aims to determine fast-food related factors based on the (SCT) in women referring to healthcare centers in Bojnourd City.

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted during 2017 among 450 women who have referred to Bojnourd healthcare systems. A three-part questionnaire was used to collect data including demographic information, consumption frequency during the last week, and questions related to Social Cognitive Theory. Data were analyzed in SPSS 20 using Spearman correlation test, Kruskal-Wallis test, ANOVA and linear regression with significance level of p<0.05.

The mean age of the subjects in this study was 29.59±7.85 years old. 62.6% of women had consumed fast-food at least once a week. There was a negative statistical relationship between fast-food consumption and age. Female students had higher fast-food consumption compared to employed women and housewives (p<0.001). Different social cognitive constructs explained 17.2% of fast-food consumption variance in the study, so that, nutritional awareness (p=0.001) and availability (p<0.001) showed significant contributions in fast-food consumption.

In this study, fast food consumption was high in older people, employed and college students and the frequency of fast food consumption was lower in women with high awareness. According to the results of the study, designing educational interventions for increasing health awareness in individuals from lower ages and providing healthy nutrition for women can have optimal effects for better nutrition selection.