Introduction:

Knowledge of nutrition is vital in order to obtain and preserve health, making it essential for health professionals to obtain an adequate level of knowledge in this field during their training, and to be mainly responsible for transmitting it to the general population, and thus playing an essential role in health care.

Objective:

A study was conducted to determine the basic nutrition knowledge of students in the areas of nursing, human medicine and nutrition.

Method:

A nutrition knowledge questionnaire was completed by 82 nursing, human medicine and nutrition students of public sector from the State of Chiapas, Mexico, who had already studied nutrition or a similar subject.

Results:

It was identified that there was insufficient knowledge on nutrition in public sector health-related students of the State of Chiapas, Mexico, with the mean of correct answers by all groups being less than 80%. The highest means were achieved by students studying the degree in nutrition. Furthermore, medical students have significantly better scores than nursing students, the latter showing the least knowledge.

Conclusions:

There is a need to review academic programs, proposing the incorporation of nutrition as a subject of first level of importance, and taught in more than one semester in the nursing and human medicine degrees.