Seda Onal
Ankara University, Turkey
Title: Determining the eating behaviors of adolescents studying at private and public schools
Biography
Biography: Seda Onal
Abstract
This study was planned and conducted in order to determine the eating behaviors of high schoolers studying at private and public schools. In total, 699 volunteer 14-17 age adolescents studying at 2 public schools (n=397) and 2 private schools (n=302) participated in the study. In determining the eating behaviors, eating behavior scale which was developed by Ozdogan (2013) and contains 58 expressions was used. This scale was prepared in order to determine the eating habits, preferences and attitudes of adolescents. Eating behaviors of adolescents were grouped as “bad”, “average”, “good” and “very good” according to the points obtained from the scale. When the eating behaviors of the students were investigated, it can be stated that 60.7% of the students studying at public school and 59.2% of them studying at private school were “good”. The relation between gender, age groups, the school at which they study and eating behavior points was not found as statically meaningful (p>0.05). As a result of the study, it was determined that the majority of the those who are at the range of “good” and “average” were the ones who are studying at public schools. It was thought that it was related to priority of preferences of the students who were at public schools having the priority. For this reason, the importance of the nutrition should be emphasized by giving them nutrition trainings in certain days by experts, they should be encouraged to make right choices and healthy nourishment should be provided to them with well-planned menus.