Attitudes to fat and fat consumption and sharing of dietary advice - A comparison between healthcare professionals and nonhealth professionals

Attityder till fett, fettkonsumtion och kostrådgivning - En jämförelse mellan hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal och icke-vårdpersonal

Ruth Panashe

Student Spring 2014 Bachelor thesis in Food and Nutrition 15 credits Food and Nutrition /Catering Management 180 credits

Supervisor Agneta Hörnell Examiner Charlotte Nygren 2014-03-27

Abstract Background One of the challenges to public health in Sweden is the consumption of excessive saturated fat and too little unsaturated fat. The National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW), the Swedish National Food Agency (SNFA) and the health sector work together to tackle such challenges, through educating the public on healthy dietary habits. The SNFA provides guidelines for all nutritional information but some of the guidelines have often been questioned leading to uncertainty and differing attitudes towards the consumption of fat in particular. Aims The study’s aim was to compare healthcare professionals’ attitudes to dietary fat and fat consumption to those of non-health professionals. A further aim was to assess if the named two groups gave advice on dietary habits. Method An online questionnaire survey was carried out with the participation of 260 adults recruited through convenience sampling. The questionnaire comprised 13 questions and the data collected were compiled in Microsoft Excel then imported to IBM SPSS 20.0., for processing and analysis. Results were analyzed using chi-square tests with p