Dietary Habits of Technical and Vocational Students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - I Meal Skipping A
Al-Sudairy
Dr Kevin
Howard, PhD, BSc, CertEd, FRSH
School of Education and Community Studies, The Liverpool John Moores University, 1M Marsh Campus, Barkhill Road, Liverpool L17 6BD
ABSTRACT 452 male technical and vocational students aged 16-25 years old were surveyed for their dietary habits at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The data presented here cover the habit of meal skipping. Results showed that dinner was skipped by 28%, by 20% and lunch was skipped by 15%. Differences are discussed according to age cohorts and accommodation
breakfast status
subgroups.
INTRODUCTION Habitual meal-skipping has been identified as one of the factors responsible for less than satisfactory nutrient intakes amongst young people (Lee, 1978; Thomas, 1988). Those who generally take three meals daily are more likely to meet the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs ) for all nutrients than those who skip meals more often (Steele et al, 1952). According to Bull (1985) breakfast is the meal most often omitted by young people who skip meals. When lunch or dinner are missed they are frequently replaced by snacks (Greger et al, 1979) whereas breakfast skipping has not been found to result in snack consumption (Musgrave et al, 1981 ). It has been found that, on average, breakfast provides around 20% , lunch 2 5 % and dinner 132% of the total daily energy intake, with the remainder coming from snacks (Truswell and Darnton-Hill, 1981 ). The data presented here is part of a survey carried out to investigate the nutritional status of technical and vocational students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The total target population consisted of 6900 young adult (16-25 year-old) male students at 6 technical education institutes and vocational training centres. A 10% random sample (690 students) was drawn from the whole population. This survey was conducted during the period from January until May 1989.
for the social sciences (SPSS/PC+) was employed to analyse the data (Frude, 1987) and the statistical significance of the relationships between certain sets of data was determined by
chi-square analysis.
RESULTS This study shows that meal-skipping is a common habit among technical and vocational students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The majority (289 students, 64% ) missed one or more of their daily meals. Dinner (evening meal) was the most often skipped meal, one in three students skipped dinner whereas one in five skipped breakfast and one in seven skipped lunch (Table 1).
Considering the three age cohorts,16-18,19-21 and 22-25 years, shown in Table 2, the oldest group skipped breakfast significantly more often than the other age cohorts (P
Al-Sudairy
Dr Kevin
Howard, PhD, BSc, CertEd, FRSH
School of Education and Community Studies, The Liverpool John Moores University, 1M Marsh Campus, Barkhill Road, Liverpool L17 6BD
ABSTRACT 452 male technical and vocational students aged 16-25 years old were surveyed for their dietary habits at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The data presented here cover the habit of meal skipping. Results showed that dinner was skipped by 28%, by 20% and lunch was skipped by 15%. Differences are discussed according to age cohorts and accommodation
breakfast status
subgroups.
INTRODUCTION Habitual meal-skipping has been identified as one of the factors responsible for less than satisfactory nutrient intakes amongst young people (Lee, 1978; Thomas, 1988). Those who generally take three meals daily are more likely to meet the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs ) for all nutrients than those who skip meals more often (Steele et al, 1952). According to Bull (1985) breakfast is the meal most often omitted by young people who skip meals. When lunch or dinner are missed they are frequently replaced by snacks (Greger et al, 1979) whereas breakfast skipping has not been found to result in snack consumption (Musgrave et al, 1981 ). It has been found that, on average, breakfast provides around 20% , lunch 2 5 % and dinner 132% of the total daily energy intake, with the remainder coming from snacks (Truswell and Darnton-Hill, 1981 ). The data presented here is part of a survey carried out to investigate the nutritional status of technical and vocational students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The total target population consisted of 6900 young adult (16-25 year-old) male students at 6 technical education institutes and vocational training centres. A 10% random sample (690 students) was drawn from the whole population. This survey was conducted during the period from January until May 1989.
for the social sciences (SPSS/PC+) was employed to analyse the data (Frude, 1987) and the statistical significance of the relationships between certain sets of data was determined by
chi-square analysis.
RESULTS This study shows that meal-skipping is a common habit among technical and vocational students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The majority (289 students, 64% ) missed one or more of their daily meals. Dinner (evening meal) was the most often skipped meal, one in three students skipped dinner whereas one in five skipped breakfast and one in seven skipped lunch (Table 1).
Considering the three age cohorts,16-18,19-21 and 22-25 years, shown in Table 2, the oldest group skipped breakfast significantly more often than the other age cohorts (P
