Student nutritional knowledge and dietary behavior : the mediating role of students' self-efficacy and the moderating role of nutrition education

Abstract EN

Poor dietary behavior is a main contributor to malnutrition, which is a global challenge with enormous social and economic costs.

The present study aims to identify the factors that are probably associated with dietary behavior to improve dietary choices.

The E-GNKQ questionnaire was adopted and distributed to 230 students enrolled in the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, University of Sadat City.

The results revealed that nutritional knowledge significantly affects the dietary behavior of the respondents.

In addition, nutrition education (department type) has positively and significantly moderated the relationship between nutritional knowledge and dietary behavior, and self-efficacy has a mediating role in the relationship between nutrition knowledge and dietary behavior.

The study recommends that higher education institutions pay attention to the critical role of nutrition education and self-efficacy to enhance the relationship between nutritional knowledge and dietary behavior by introducing nutritional courses in a wider range of academic programs.