ÇİVRİL YÖRESİNDEKİ ADOLESANLARDA BESLENME OKURYAZARLIĞININ MEVCUT DURUMU VE ETKİLEYEN FAKTÖRLER

Abstract

Introduction: In recent years there has been an increase in the prevalence of diseases caused by nutrition becoming a major public health problem. Nutrition literacy (NL) is important for the control and elimination of nutrition related chronic diseases. However, there is not much literature on nutrition literacy. Understanding nutrition literacy will allow for the development and maintenance of health, wellness, healthy nutrition and nutritional choices, and reductions in chronic disease prevalence. Objective: It was aimed to determine the nutrition literacy status of adolescents presently and the affecting factors students in the ninth grade in Denizli province Çivril region. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out with the participation of 523 students in 2017-2018 acedemic term. The data were collected using a two-part questionnaire. While the sociodemographic characteristics, nutrition knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of the participant were questioned in the first part, while the Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale and basic nutrition information were measured in the second part. The Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale was created by Bari (2012) and Turkmen et al. (2017) adapted it to Turkish. The Turkish adaptation of the Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale consists of 22 items in the five-point Likert type. The lowest score that can be scored from the scale is 22, the highest score is 110. Increased level of nutrition literacy provides the higher scores of adolescents. Results: The mean age of participants was 14.96 ± 0.54 years, 49.7% of them were girls, 47% of them were in normal body mass index and 68.1% of them non-smoked. Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale score average is 67.62 ± 7.98. In the light of the data obtained, nutrition literacy is related to maternal education level, health perception and body perception, unhealthy food consumption status, information barriers, trust levels to dietitians and textbooks. Conclusion: In this group, the NL score is moderate and below expected. It would be appropriate to undertake initiatives that would increase women's education, raise adolescents' body and general health perceptions, and divert barriers to information about nutrition.