Status of nutritional literacy in adolescents in the semi-rural area in Turkey and related factors

OBJECTIVE: To determine the status of nutritional literacy and its affecting factors among the adolescents who are in the 9th grade in Çivril, in Denizli province, in Turkey. DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study that determines the sociodemographic characteristics, nutritional habits, nutritional behaviour, nutritional literacy status of adolescents and affecting factors. SETTING: Denizli, Turkey. PARTICIPANTS: We included 523 adolescents in ninth grade in this study. RESULTS: Half (49·7 %) of the participants were female; 47 %, in normal BMI; and 68·1 %, non-smokers. The mean (sd) Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale score was 67·6 (sd 7·9). Nutrition literacy status was related to mothers’ education level (P 0·021); health perceptions (P 0·008); positive body perception (P 0·032); unhealthy food consumption status (P 0·017); information barriers (undecided about effort for information gathering (P 0·026), undecided about the difficulty of understanding information (P 0·042) and thinking it is difficult to understand (P 0·003)), trust in nutrition, diet information sources (nutrition and diet expert, dietitian trusting (according to others) (P 0·001), nutrition and diet expert, dietitian neutral to trust (compared with others) (P 0·011) and trust in textbooks (P 0·023)). CONCLUSIONS: The level of nutrition literacy status of participants was moderate. It is important to carry out interventions to increase the education level of women, positive body perceptions and general health perceptions of adolescents and to remove information barriers related to nutrition.