Abstract
Poor dietary practices most commonly presented among university students, which ultimately affect their health. Now traditional Mediterranean healthful food habits actually switched by westernized habits, which characterized by low dietary fiber, vegetables, and fruit with high consumption of fatty food, sugar; and consequently, overweight with its related problems. So, this research aiming to assess university students' dietary practices and its related specified parameters. An authorized survey was distributed haphazardly to 350 faculty students. The survey was performed using a pre-validated 14 items questionnaire. Some dietary related parameters as hemoglobin & cholesterol level and body mass index were measured.46.57% of studied female were skipping breakfast, also 32.85% and 38% eating fast food three times weekly and eating sweets/chocolates 4 times or more/ day respectively. 99% of the studied female versus 63% consumed carbonated drinks two times per day. Additionally, 40.86% of studied students were normal weight while 28.28% were overweight. There was a greater elevation in cholesterol with mean 241.31 +/- 18.14 mg/dl in studied female versus slight elevation with mean 192.00 +/- 12.69 mg/dl in male. Also, Blood hemoglobin had normal level with mean 14.19 +/- 1.98 mg/dl in male versus reducing level than normal with mean 10.42 +/- 2.67 mg/dl in female. Conclusions: Unhealthy dietary practices and consumption of fast food have undesirable effects on health as elevated cholesterol and hemoglobin. Conducting awareness programs-raising on healthy dietary practices and the health-related effects of over-consumption of fast food among university students.