Relationship between the cognitive ability toward 2011 New Daily Food Guide and nutrition related general education course among non-nutrition majored college students in Taiwan

The Department of Health in Taiwan made several modifications for Daily Food Guide (DFG) in 2011. However, the degree of cognition and compliance toward the 2011 DFG among non-nutrition majored college students remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive ability toward DFG, dietary intake pattern, and relationship between nutrition knowledge, attitude and eating behavior toward DFG among non-nutrition majored college students who took nutrition-related general education courses (NRGEC) in Taichung City; in addition to examine the association between cognitive ability toward DFG and the compliance of implementing it and to evaluate the efficacy of NRGEC on promoting DFG. Stratified cluster random sampling was used to select participant students among 4 universities in Taichung City. The sample consisted of 21 classes (total 954 students) from four schools. A self-designed questionnaire was distributed in order to measure students’ nutrition knowledge, attitude, and pattern of food intake. The cognitive and compliance ability toward DFG were the outcomes, and the demographics and NRGEC were the independent variables. Differences between these who had taken NRGEC and had not were analyzed by using SPSS. The effective questionnaires were 940, and 154 (16%) students had taken NRGEC. The cognitive ability toward DFG (8.3±1.3 vs. 12.5±0.8) and the compliance of implementing DFG (2.2±0.7 vs. 3.5±0.5) in the NRGEC group was significantly higher than non-NRGEC group. In summary, having a nutrition-related general education course could promote the cognitive ability toward 2011 DFG and further improve the dietary compliance for non-nutrition majored college students.