. Zahra Yazdankhah; . Yadollah Mehrabi; . Sakineh Rakhshanderou; . Ali Safari‑Moradabadi; . Mohtasham Ghaffari
Volume 10, Issue 12 , December 2020, , Pages 1-7
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Approximately one third of the food produced in the world for human consumptionwas wasted.OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine the effect of intervention on behavior ...
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BACKGROUND: Approximately one third of the food produced in the world for human consumptionwas wasted.OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine the effect of intervention on behavior of foodconsumption and waste production in the restaurants of Shahid Beheshti University of MedicalSciences.MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this quasi‑experimental study, 233 students of public health schoolwere selected as intervention group, and 233 students of medical school were selected as controlgroup. The food wastage was weighed in both “Sabz” and “Medical” restaurants for a week. Based ontraining needs of the samples, teaching methods and programs were implemented in the interventiongroup for a month. The clients of both restaurants were followed 4 weeks after the intervention. Thefood waste was weighed after 4 weeks. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16 andstatistical tests (Wilcoxon, Chi‑squared, McNemar, and Mann–Whitney tests).RESULTS: The results obtained from Wilcoxon test showed that, the means of awareness, attitude,and behavior were significantly improved after the intervention in the intervention and controlgroups (P < 0.001). After the intervention, according to the number of served foods, it was expectedthat the weight of food wastage to be 341.37 kg/week, but this figure was reduced to 224.98 kg/weekafter the intervention.CONCLUSIONS: This study has confirmed the effectiveness of implementation of interventions onenhancement of knowledge, attitude, and behavior of people about consumption of food and amountof wastage. The authors suggest that to investigate sustainability of effect of intervention on behaviorof food consumption and wastage production, this study could be implemented in different and longertime intervals after the end of project.
