Does the nutritional literacy of adolescents affect their eating behavior?

Aims: Diseases such as obesity. diabetes. hypertension. which develop as a result of the deterioration in the diet quality of adolescent individuals in our country and around the world and unhealthy eating habits acquired during this period. pose a risk for future health. Adolescents need to correctly perceive. evaluate and apply nutrition-related information for healthy food consumption. For this reason, studies have been conducted in recent years on nutrition literacy. which is defined as the ability to acquire. understand and adopt basic nutrition information. This study was designed to determine whether the adolescents nutritional literacy (ANL) is effective in the eating behaviors of individuals. Methods: This cross-sectionally planned study was conducted between June April-June 2022 at Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine Department of Child Health and Diseases. The sociodemographic characteristics. nutritional literacy and eating behaviors of adolescents were determined by face-to-face interview method and their anthropometric measurements were examined. These measurements were evaluated with the height length of adolescents according to age, body mass index (BMI) Z scores. The participants' nutritional literacy was revealed with the ‘ANL Scale‘ and their eating behaviors were revealed with the ’Adolescent Eating Habits Checklist' (AEHC). Results: Of the 220 volunteer adolescents who participated in the study. 62.3% were girls and 37.7% were boys. The Functional Nutritional Literacy (FNL) score of girls was higher than that of boys (p=0.01). The total score of the Adolescent Nutrition Literacy (ANL) Scale. Interactive Nutrition Literacy (INL). Critical Nutrition Literacy (CNL) and Adolescent Eating Habits Checklist (AEHC) scores were lower for adolescents who did not do regular physical activity (p<0.05). The total score of the ANL Scale. CNL and AEHC scores of the adolescents who did not consume fast food were higher than those of the adolescents who consumed fast food (p<0.05). There was a negative correlation between the frequency of fast food consumption and AEHC score (p<0.05). Conclusion: As a result of the study. it was found that adequate nutrition literacy of adolescents can have a positive effect on their eating habits. For this reason, it was considered necessary to provide education to adolescents in order to increase awareness of nutritional literacy.