Factors influencing food preferences towards acculturation among middle-eastern students in Klang valley area

Abstract

The present research was carried out to study factors influencing food preferences towards acculturation among Middle-East students in the Klang Valley area. The questionnaires were distributed to a convenience sample of 100 Middle-East students who studies in five (5) universities in Klang Valley area. The universities that involved in this research were Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM}, Islamic International University of Malaysia (HUM) and Universiti Tenaga National Malaysia (UNITEN) which every university was collected about 20 samples. There was a significant difference for food frequency intake while living in Malaysia compared to country of origin. From 51 foods listed on the questionnaires, consumption of bread, cereal, rice, vegetables, meats products, fats, sweets beverages and Arabic dishes were decreased significantly and increased significantly for Malaysian and Western dishes. Convenience factors which was one of the food choice factors being an influencing factors of food preferences with has positive and weakly correlation (r = 0.184, p< 0.05) while there were no significant differences for food frequency intake, acculturation factors, and sociodemographic factors for food preferences. Due to the results in this research, the respondents were not acculturated with Malaysian foods and culture because for every items in acculturation, the values were closer to 3 = "English" reflecting a tendency to use Arab and English language, culture and influencing in reading. For food preferences, the respondents choose the Arabic foods (mean = 2.32 and 2.33).