KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PERCEPTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND DIETARY CHOICES IN A PREDOMINANTLY CHINESE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS POPULATION IN KLANG VALLEY

LING JUN LEE; SERENE EN HUI TUNG; WAN YING GAN; SATVINDER KAUR

doi:10.55230/mabjournal.v51i3.2275

Authors

LING JUN LEE Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Faculty of Applied Sciences, UCSI University, 56000 Cheras, Malaysia
SERENE EN HUI TUNG
serenetung84@gmail.com
Department of Public Health Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
WAN YING GAN Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
SATVINDER KAUR Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Faculty of Applied Sciences, UCSI University, 56000 Cheras, Malaysia

Keywords:

Barriers, climate change, climate-friendly, source of information, university student

Abstract

Climate change is a public health threat that is aggravated by the food supply chain. A dietary shift to climate-friendly foods is a feasible strategy to mitigate it. This study aimed to investigate the associations between knowledge, attitude, perception towards climate change, and barriers to climate-friendly foods with dietary choices of university students in Klang Valley. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 303 Malaysian university students (71.9% Chinese) aged 18 to 30 years in Klang Valley, by using Google form to assess knowledge, attitude, perception towards climate change, barriers to climate-friendly food, and climate-friendly dietary choices. The average climate-friendly diet score (CFDS) was 0.36±2.21, with a significantly higher CFDS among females than males (p=0.012). The majority of them were having good knowledge (76.6%), a good attitude (66.3%), and a moderate level of perception (62.0%) towards climate change. About two-thirds of them reported social media as the main (63.0%) and preferred (63.7%) sources to receive information about climate change. Through multiple linear regression, barriers to climate-friendly food choices (β=-0.084; p<0.001) significantly contributed to climate-friendly dietary choices (F=4.215; p<0.001), whereby 14.9% of the variances were climate-friendly dietary choices of university students. Findings could be incorporated into dietary education to tackle barriers to climate-friendly foods among university students.

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