ABSTRACT
Background: Fast food culture is a vigorously uprising trend among the youngster’s engaged in higher education as well. Objectives: To assess fast food consumption among female research scholars of a central university and to identify influencing factors for the prevailing situation. Material and Method: For this cross sectional study 282 female research scholars of Banaras Hindu University were selected through multistage sampling. They were interviewed with pre-designed and pretested proforma about socio– demographic characteristics and consumption of fast foods. Results: Out of 282 subjects, 69.5% subjects consumed fast food daily whereas in case of 12.4% subjects this was 3-4 days per week. Fast food consumption was significantly influenced by area of residence, type of family, religion, caste, family size, source of income and socio-economic status. Consumption of fast food on daily basis was more in subjects from, urban area (77.8%), nuclear family (71.1%), family size 3 (81.9%), source of income other than service and business (73.0%) and SES I (74.9%). As per logistic model higher AORs were for urban area (4.77; 95% CI : 2.28-10.0); OBC caste (3.02; 95%, CI 1.45-6.27), and when total family member were 3 (3.51; 95%; CI 1.34-9.22). Conclusion: Fast food consumption was considerably high by female research scholars and area of residence, caste and family size were its significant predictors.