A questionnaire-based study to identify the physiological implications of unpleasant hall dining foods among university students

Most of the residential halls of the public universities in Bangladesh are unable to ensure the hygienic environment for students. Therefore, a pilot study was conducted to evaluate the levels of student's satisfaction regarding the hygiene status, and the quality of offered foods and water in four different halls of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh. University students (N =100; 50% female and 50% male) from different disciplines with an age range of 18-22 years were surveyed using a fixed structured questionnaire. We observed that most of the students were highly dissatisfied with the hall dining options and the quality of supplied foods and water. Food and water samples were collected from these four different hall dinings to evaluate the presence of pathogenic bacteria and their antibiotic susceptibility. Results confirmed the presence of Escherichia coli in all the collected samples along with ampicillin and tetracycline resistant potential. This unsatisfactory hygiene status of the foods and water might develop foodborne illness and other health hazards, and thereby constitute a major food safety risk to the university students consuming meals at hall dining.