The Effect of the Nutritional Education Given to the Students Attending to the Secondary Stage of the Primary School on Their Nutrition Knoıvledge and Food Habits

Abstract

This research has been conducted on 120 s tu dents, studying at Yenimahalle Öğretmen Kubilay Primary School affıliated with the Ministry o f National Education with an aim o f determining the effect o f the nutritional education given to the students studying at the secondary stage o f the p r im a ry sch o o l on th e ir nutrition and food habits. The questionnaire prepared by the researeher in an effort to collect the data were used as the preliminary test and the current nutritional information and fo o d habits o f the students were determined. Students were divided into three groups. Educational session has been performed to thefırst group o f students, covering the nutritional information through a manual developed by the researeher (Group 1), Second group has been received only verbal education and the third group were chosen as a control group (Group 3). The questionnaire used as the preliminary test have been rearranged to be used as the final test and nutritional knowledge as well as the fo o d habits o f the students have been eva lu a ted again. During the evaluation o f the data; the pack age program o f SP S S 10.0 fo r Windows has been utilized and t-test, variance analysis and signifıcance tests have been applied while taking their percentages. During determining the difference between intra-groups preliminary and fin a l test; p< 0 .0 5 signifıcance level have been utilized. İt has also been determined that 5.0% o f the students eat fiv e times and more a day; 76.7% eat three meals while the majority (52.5%) sometimes skips meals and 35.0% do not skip meals. Furthermore it has been fo u n d out that 22.5% o f the students participating to the research partially received nutritional education while 49.2% never received nutritional education. It has been determined that a significant relationship existed among the nutritional information level o f the students after the education (between 1-2 group, 3-2 group and 1-3 group) (p<0.05). It has also been determined that nutritional Information manual supplied to the stu dents had a significant effect on education . Therefore it is suggested that nutritional education should be given to the children and young people during each stage o f education and this education should be perpetuated.