NUTRITION HABITS AND FOOD CONSUMPTION FREQUENCIES OF MEDICAL FACULTY STUDENTS

Objective: Medical faculty students may develop irregular eating habits for reasons such as their social - economic situations, adaptation to faculty life, dormitory or their new environment. As a result, some students eventually ignore their basic food requirements and have a diet that is cabohydrate, saturated fat and cholesterol rich. Our aim was to search the nutritional habits and food consumption of medical faculty students in order to provide a healthy diet advice. Material and Method: This study was conducted with the first, fourth and sixth year students of Istanbul University, Medical Faculty in the 2009-2010 academic year. Interview Forms were given to 746 students. They accepted to take part in this study voluntarily and answered the questions under our observation. Interview Forms included a questionnaire with 17 questions and a monthly food consumption frequency form. Results: It was found that 1/3 of the students did not have three meals a day, almost half of the students had irregular meal times and more than 3/4 of the students had irregular and unhealthy meals. Some of the students had pre-existing health problems so they needed special diets. In all, 5.4% of the students had food allergies. In addition, the number of meals eaten decreased and irregular eating habits increased with the students' academic year progression. The most preferred snacks were found to be chocolate, wafers, cream-cakes, sweet foods, tea, coffee, cake, biscuits, fruit juice, fruit, cola, soda and nuts respectively. Conclusion: These results showed that medical students have to give greater importance to their nutrition. We should continue to give nutritional education for students and control the content of the canteen and refectory menus.