Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to determine university studentsâ�� attitudes towards food addititives. This study was made on randomly selected 450 voluteered students studying in the faculties of Ankara University (Faculty of Pharmacy, Political Sciences and Science). Data were collected with questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised general information and questions to determine, studentsâ�� attitudes about food additives. The data obtained from the survey results were analyzed using SPSS software. 46.0% of students were male while 54.0% of female. The mean age of students was 21.7�±2.05 years. Considering of studentsâ�� concerns about the use of food additives, the majority of students (43.3%) thought that food additives were harmful effect on health. In the use of food additives in order to use visual deception were those who thought that it was 16%. It was found that 40.9% of students thought that legal control of food additives was not enough and 40.2% thought that they can cause cancer, 36.9% of students thought that if food addititives werenâ��t used, foods will be healthier. The majority of (49.6%) students thought that food addititives was not used in accordance to the law. According to the results, it can be said that students has negative attitudes towards food additives. It is great that food additives has a role of nutritional requirments of the growing world population when properly used. It was concluded that students need more information about food addititives and at the same time nutrition education should be given in all sections for longer periods.

Biography

Mustafa Ozgur graduated from Erciyes University in 2014 and is a Research Assistant in Nutrition and Dietetics Departmant of Ankara University. At same time, he is doing his Master’s in Nutrition and Dietetics.

Email: mozgur@ankara.edu.tr