The study sought to assess the influence of nutrition education and intervention programmes on nutrition knowledge and dietary practice among both students and staff (including faculty) of Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University in Saudi Arabia.

A pretest–posttest, non-randomised experimental study design was implemented at Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh City between September 2019 and February 2020.

Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University is the largest women’s university in the world and has eighteen colleges and institutions and around ninety academic programmes.

The survey was completed by 1824 participants (1350 students and 474 staff/faculty) before the intervention and by a different cohort of 1731 participants (1317 students and 414 staff/faculty) after the intervention. In total, an independent sample of 3555 staff and students participated. Participants were asked about dietary knowledge and practices. Dietary knowledge entailed food variety and nutrients, fast food and its poor nutritional value, and the influence of cooking style on the nutritional quality of food. Dietary practices involved eating breakfast; consuming salt/sugar, eating high-salt food; eating pre-packaged food and consumption of vegetables, fruits, supplements, water and caffeine.

The majority of the sample consisted of students (75·1 %) and had not been diagnosed with any disease (73·7 %). The result of the current study showed that nutrition knowledge improved after completion of the nutrition programme.

The nutrition awareness programme improved students’ nutritional knowledge; however, there was no significant effect on their dietary practices. Future nutrition awareness programmes should separate activities for students and staff, focusing on one target population at a time.