Knowledge of the Armenian Population About Healthy Nutrition

Abstract

Executive Summary: With industrialization, urbanization, development of new technologies and economic changes occurring to a great extent during these last decades throughout the world, there have been changes in diet and lifestyle of people. Such changes have influenced nutritional status and overall health of people from developed, as well as from developing and transitional countries. Experts consider that diet is a major modifiable factor influencing health, especially in the context of chronic diseases and it is also known that appropriate changes in nutrition patterns of people can considerably help to prevent main causes of disability and premature death in both developing and developed countries. Previous research shows that the nutritional patterns of Armenian people cannot be considered as healthy. Taking into account the importance of healthy eating habits and the significant role of nutrition knowledge on such habits, as well as the evidence that suggests poor eating patterns in Armenian families, it is important to assess the knowledge of the Armenian population about healthy eating. Research questions of the current study were: 1) Do adult residents of Yerevan know current expert dietary recommendations? 2) Do adult residents of Yerevan know the health implications of eating or failing to eat particular foods? 3) Are there associations between age, sex, education, marital status, number of children in the household, employment status, income level and nutrition knowledge level among adults of Yerevan? A cross-sectional descriptive/analytical study was conducted in Yerevan to assess the level of knowledge of the adult population of Yerevan about healthy nutrition. The target population of the study included residents of Yerevan (≥ 18 years old). The participants were selected through a simple random sampling technique. The phonebook of Yerevan was the sampling frame . The student investigator used an interviewer administered questionnaire developed on the basis of a valid and reliable questionnaire. Data were entered through the SPSS statistical package and analyzed using the Stata program. The results showed that the overall mean nutritional knowledge of the Yerevan adult population was quite low, estimated as only 24.1% (95% CI: 8.96 to 39.48) based on scores ranging from 0 to 100%. However the mean knowledge score was higher regarding dietary recommendations (53.3%, 95%CI: 24.5 to 82.8), but lower regarding relationships between diet and diseases (19.6%, 95%CI: 3.0 to 36.4). The results showed that higher level of education was related to a higher level of knowledge about healthy nutrition. On average, the knowledge score was 2.5 points higher for respondents with a university degree compared to those without it. For other variables there were no statistically significant differences in the mean knowledge. More than 25% of respondents falsely believed that osteochondrosis was related to high intake of salt. This study recommends development of educational programs for Yerevan population about healthy eating patterns and association of non healthy diets with poor health outcomes. In addition, conducting a similar survey in other parts of Armenia could help to investigate the level of healthy nutrition knowledge in the Armenian population.