Exploring Dietary Behaviors and Obesity Prevalence in Multan, Pakistan

Abstract

Obesity is a major dangerous factor for mortality. It is reported that around 2.8 million people die each year from health problems. It is alarming to see the risk of health effects that obesity can impose on people, including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and many others. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports showed that adults have a higher obesity rate than ever before. This research aims to investigate the dietary behaviors of individuals, especially the fast-food consumption behaviour and the health hazard factors linked with it. The dietary behaviours are changing, and fast-food consumption is getting more popular in Pakistan. We aim to capture the dietary behaviors of youth and their effects on their health, especially on females. A quantitative research design was adopted, and a simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 200 female students from the universities of Multan. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data on fast food consumption patterns, demographic characteristics, and health outcomes. 80% of the female respondents reported that access to fast food is easy for them. Moreover, 40.5% of the respondents eat fast food 1-2 times a week, 60.0% of the respondents preferred fast food as an alternative food because of taste,48.05% of the respondents are agree that their weight is increasing and obesity effects their overall health well-being, 34.5% of the respondents were neutral about to have received nutritional education. It is concluded that fast food dietary behavior is affecting the health of the respondents.