ABSTRACT

This study aimed at investigating the knowledge, attitude and consumption level of carotene rich foods among students in Abia state polytechnic and Michael Opkara University of Agriculture, Umudike. It was a cross-sectional survey comprising of four hundred (229 males and 171females) undergraduate students of Abia poly and MOUAU. A structured and validated questionnaire was used to collect information on personal data, knowledge and attitude of carotene rich food, consumption levels of carotene rich foods and their dietary patterns. The names of the departments in the six different faculties were written on pieces of papers and the papers were folded. Two (2) individuals were asked to randomly pick one paper each without replacement from each faculty. The departments picked were the ones used in this research work and IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0 was used to analyze the data. The results shows that, more than half (54.5%) of the respondents had moderate nutrition knowledge, 7.8% had poor nutrition knowledge while 37.8% of the respondents had good nutrition knowledge. More than one-third (36.3%) of the respondent had poor knowledge of carotene rich foods, 38.5% had moderate knowledge of carotene rich foods while 25.3% had good knowledge of carotene rich foods. The respondents’ attitudes to carotene rich foods consumption revealed that 38.5% of the respondents agreed that scraping off the back of carrot is better than eating it with the back, 42.8% agreed that peeling off the back of cucumber is more nutritional than eating it with the back, 43.0% agreed that bleaching red oil while making stew is more nutritional, 41.8% agreed that bleaching pumpkin leaf is not nutritional, 37.5% agreed that fruits and vegetables can’t serve as a meal, 48.3% agreed that cooked tomatoes is better than fresh tomatoes, 44.5% agreed that cooked cabbage is better than fresh cabbage, 46.5% agreed that using turmeric as colourant is better than artificial colour, 40.3% agreed that eating too much carotene rich foods like pawpaw, vegetables etc can cause stomach disorder, 55.5% agreed that carotene rich foods are red in colour and 48.0% agreed that carotene rich foods contains water soluble vitamin.  The respondents had average consumption of fruits and vegetables to be 1-2 times daily. Consumption of vegetables was seen to be higher compared to fruits intake. Fruits and vegetables consumption is a critical route to long life and good health. Although the consumption of fruit and vegetable is strongly associated with lower risk of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases and obesity, consumption levels among students of Abia state polytechnic and MOUAU are notably lower than the recommended amount of 400g per day, a quantity approximately equivalent to 5 servings per day. Thus, there is the need to identify acceptable ways in which carotene rich foods consumption will be increased among students in Abia state poly and MOUAU.