Abstract
Sachiko Ohkita Noriko Hanasaki Yuki Ikeda Taeko Kuragano This study was conducted on female university students to identify their awareness of the effect of eating habits on environmental load reduction. Those students with strong concern about environmental problems tended to show a high degree of awareness of and to practice environmental load reduction when purchasing, preserving, cooking and eating foodstuffs. However, such an awareness of environmental load reduction did not necessarily lead to appropriate dietary behavior. The students with stronger concern about environmental problems tended to be aware of the effect of environmental pollutants on themselves and the next generation. Those students who were conscious of the importance of nutrition when cooking food tended to eat with environmental load reduction in mind. It is therefore important for students to be educated in what causes environmental load in their eating habits and how to reduce it, and also to be informed of the risks of pollutants caused by food. It would thus be effective to link nutrition education with environmental education.
