If I like it, I'm eating it: Study of high-calorie high-fat food preference among obese police officer

Abstract

Police officers must have a readiness to respond quickly and sometimes lastingly to extremely taxing physical situations so they need strong stamina and nutritious food. However, many police officers are obese because they like to eat foods high in calories and fat. This research aims to know the relationship between food preferences and food consumption of high-calorie high-fat as well as knowing the factors that relate to food preferences on police whose had a problem with obesity. The design of this study was cross sectional and carried out at Madiun Resort Police Department, Indonesia. Methods and materials this study is population was all obese police officers totaling 145 police officers and we used the total population as a sampling method. The sample criteria had IMT ≥ 25 kg m-2, not in a special diet, age ≥ 24 yr, male. Food consumption was measured using Semi-Quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (SQFFQ). Food preference was measured using the food preference questionnaire. This research used PR to get the result of correlation and chi-square to test of significance. The result, majority of obese police officers like high-calorie high-fat food (56.73 %) and have overconsumption of that food (50.75 %). The most preferred of high-calorie high-fat food is fried tempeh (97.28 %), fried tofu (94.03 %), and fried chicken (86.57 %). The research showed that the prevalence risk of obese police who have overconsumption of high-calory high-fat in the group that likes high-calorie high-fat foods was 2.12 times higher than obese police who did not like high-fat high-calorie foods. The conclusion of this study is a correlation between food consumption and food preference, but there is no relationship between food preferences and nutrition knowledge, income, food prices.