(1) Objective: We aimed to explore the current situation of eating out and the association with socio-demographic factors of university students in Chongqing, China. (2) Methods: We used self-administered questionnaires to collect information. There are 14 universities in Chongqing; four (Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing University, Chongqing Normal University, and Chongqing University of Science & Technology) were randomly selected. In each selected university, two disciplines were randomly selected. (3) Results: 4595 university students participated in the study. The frequency of eating out was relatively high. The frequency of eating out among females was higher than that among males during weekdays. The two main reasons for eating out were having an opportunity to meet friends (56.0%) and improving diet (39.6%). Bistros (61.7%) and hot-pot restaurants (41.1%) were the favorite places for eating out. Only 36.0% of the participants said they considered nutrition and food safety when selecting restaurants. The majority of the participants demonstrated a high demand for nutrition and food safety knowledge when eating out (77.7%). (4) Conclusions: The higher the monthly living expenses were, the higher the frequency of eating out was. An intervention strategy to reduce the frequency or change the behavior of eating out should be formulated by considering the students' perspectives.
Keywords: eating out; frequency; socio-demographic; university students.