@2024 Afarand., IRAN

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ISSN: 2383-2150    Journal of Education and Community Health 2014;1(1):19-26

Background
...[1-7]. Eating fast foods as a meal is a simple alternative for the busy families [8-10]. The working mothers declare that these kinds of food help them prepare the food for family in case of lack of time or when they are not patient to do cooking [1]. ...[11-22]. social cognitive theory and the principles of mutual determination provides a framework for recognizing the behavior in family structure and suggest that the behavior including nutritional behavior results from the individual and environmental factors [23].
Previous Studies
The frequency of eating fast foods among the students aged between 6-18 years old is two days a week[5]. Increasing fast food consumption is related to receiving more energy and obesity and also low consumption of fruit, vegetables and healthy food in children, teenagers and adults [6,11,16-20]. … [24] According to the above evidence and also the effect that women have on preparing and choosing meal for family as a wife or mother and that majority of diet concepts are got by them, it brought in fixed and permanent effects on children and family [25].
Aim(s)
This study aimed to determine the factors related to fast food consumption in family based on the social cognitive theory among women in Hamedan.
Research type
This is a cross sectional research.
Research society, place and time
In this research, 384 women referred to health centers in Hamedan on August and September 2014 were studied.
Sampling method and number
Among the health centers in city and health bases in Hamedan, 10 centers were selected randomly. The health centers were selected by systematic sampling. Also, in consistent with the population of target group of covered by these selected centers, the required number of samples was selected randomly from whom referred with health record and then they were studied. The informed consents were collected from the participants of the study.
Used devices&materials
The instrument used to collect data was the researcher- made questionnaire including demographic data of participants, the questions about the frequency of consumption within a week and the questions relating to the constructs of social cognitive theory. In this study, fast food means fast and easy cooking[26] and unhealthy foods were used in it. In order to receive the reliable answers, these definitions were handed to women filling the questionnaire. In order to assess the frequency of eating fast foods during the past week, 8 questions were used. Also the social cognitive theory including 8 questions related to nutritional knowledge, 4 questions related to facilitation, 7questions related to the environment, 8 questions of outcome expectations, 8 questions of outcome expectancy, 5 questions of cooking skills, 4 questions of observational learning, 7questions of self- efficacy were investigated. In order to investigate the validity of contents, the views of six experts in health promotion and health education were used. Accordingly, the validity of content was evaluated. This index equals to 96% for all tools. Also, after doing proposed amendments, the index of validity of content for all of scales were more than 0.9. The reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient based on filling the questionnaire by 30 referees to the health centers. Because the scores of Cronbach's alpha in the constructs of reception frequency, knowledge, facilitation, skill and observational learning was low, the necessary changes were done in questions and re- filled by 30 referees and finally the internal correlation was received for knowledge 0.76, facilitation 0.83, environment 0.74, outcome expectation0.63, outcome expectancy 0.75, cooking skills 0.75, observational learning 0.71 and self -efficacy. Statistical analysis In order to analyze the collected data, SPSS 16, descriptive statistics and t test for comparing the means in two groups and one way ANOVA for comparing the means in more than two groups were used. In order to investigate the relevance of the given behavior, multiple linear regression analysis was used at the same time.
Findings by Text
According to received results, most of the females participated in this study were between 22 and 32 years old and with frequency of 47.4%. The number of family members of 45% of women was 4 to 6. Half of women had diploma. 82.6% of women were housewives and the others had jobs. Around 40% of husbands of participants were between 32 to 42 years old and were under diploma. The economic condition of majority of women (63%) was average. The mean and SD of scores of social cognitive constructs among women participated in the study was shown in Table 1. Based on the results, the total frequency of eating fast foods within the past week was 2.20 times and sausages were used mostly (Table 2). Using t test, there was a significant difference between the housewives and working women regarding the frequency of eating fast food (p<0.001) so that working women used fast food more than the other group did. Based on the one way ANOVA analysis, there was no significant difference between the age (p=0.09), education level (p=0.24) and economic condition (p=0.08) of women and the frequency of eating fast foods.Multiple regression analysis showed that in general, different constructs of social cognitive theory explain 21% of variance of eating fast food among. Among the investigated structures, facilitation (P<0.001) and outcome expectancy could significantly explain the variance of eating fast food (Table 3).
Main comparison to the similar studies
… [27]. According to the study by Mooe, people who don’t eat fast food are more likely to have a healthy diet than the people who eat fast food one or two times in a week[28]. social cognitive theory could explain 21% of variance of eating fast food among women. The previous studies reported the prediction to be less than 30% [29]. The results of this study have approved the results of previous study based on the high amount of eating fast food among the families. The studies by Borzooei et al. showed that 44.5 % of female students consumed fast foods two times in a week[30]. Also the studies of Fazelpoor et al. showed that 90.8 % of Yazd residents used at least one type of fast food and only 9.2 % , did not used these kinds of foods [31]. …[32-37].The factor of inconvenience like easiness and less time consumption, in various studies have been proposed as a variable of effectiveness in consumption of fast foods. In this study, time saving was very important from the point of view of the participants (81%). From the point of view of women participated in this study, the consequences relating to having the good feeling of eating in a different place , enjoying the taste, joy and hilarity is very important (about 90%). In the study done about the reasons of eating fast foods in America, the importance of these factors as a determinant of consuming fast foods was emphasized [38]. In the present study, around half of the participants believed that fast foods are more expensive. The participants in Reidel’d study considered the price of these foods as one of the reasons of lack of frequent consumption [38].
Suggestions
In order to decrease the problems resulting from unhealthy eating behavior and correct the inappropriate nutritional patterns, it is required that the interventional- educational programs be implemented with the emphasis on the harmfulness of consuming fast foods and the benefits of prevention, also persuading women in providing and cooking healthy foods at home.
Limitations
In this study, a questionnaire and self -reporting method was used which is considered as the limitation of study. On order to decrease the recalling bias to report the frequency of consuming fast food, time duration of one week is considered.
Conclusions
Consuming fast foods is effected by demographic factors, price, social and economic factors and increasing the places of offering these foods throughout the cities. Women use these kinds of food due to lack of time, availability and convenience in eating fast foods.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge and thanks all of women participated in this study, the Administrators and staffs in all of the health centers.
Conflict of interest
None declared
Ethical Permissions
None declared
Funding Sources
This study has been written from the data of proposal (register No. 9209193360) approved by Deputy of Research and Technology Research Council of Hamedan University of Medical Sciences

TABLES and CHARTS

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