Determination of the prejudice, attitude and behavior of the students towards obesity who received training on nutrition and dietetics

The study has been conducted to identify prejudice, attitude and behavior of Nutrition and Dietetics students towards obesity and to determine the changes in their prejudice, attitude and behavior after conuducting educational interventions. This study is a kind of intervention and has been conducted with 57 voluntary female student which are having training at the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics of Başkent University in 2016-2017 academic year. The study comprises 5 stages which have been conducted at intervals of 2 weeks. At the 1st stage; demographic features, the survey that measures the attitude towards obesity and GAMS 27-Obesity Prejudice Scale (OPS) have been implemented. At the 2nd stage, a survey that measures the attitude towards diet has been carried out and it has been asked from students to perform a healty diet that they prepared for themselves at an optimal level for 7 days. At the 3rd stage, the survey about diet has been reapplied. At the 4th stage, a survey that measures the awareness about the troubles that obese individuals experience at their daily life has been conducted. Later, a 2 minutes video film which mentions about the problems that overweight individuals experience at their social lifes has been shown. Right after, the same survey of the 4th stage has been reapplied. At the 5th stage, GAMS 27-Obesity Prejudice Scale has been reapplied. The data of this study has been evaluated through appropriate statistical mehtods by using SPSS 22.0 package. The average point of the students at GAMS-27 OPS was 76,9 9,74 before and decreased to 72,5 10,75 after the intervention. Although in both cases, the average point is in prejudice-prone interval, the difference has been found meaningful (p<0,05). Furthermore, the average points of the prejudiced or prejudice-prone students, who are defined according to the points of OPS has been decreased meaningfully after the intervention (p<0,05). 73,7 % of the students indicated that they can continue diet for 7 days long but only 12,3 % of them kept up. The OPS average points of the ones who considered to continue diet has been decreased (p<0,05). The common response provided for not sustaining diet is the attendance to social events. After the video intervention, it has been found out that, the students have generally indecisive attitude towards the troubles that obese individuals experience in their daily lives. On the other hand, it is determined that they realized their negative attitute towards obese individuals and agreed on that they had such attitudes. Besides, it has been observed that there is a meaningful decrease in OPS average points of the students (p<0,05). In conclusion, obesity prejudice is being encountered at the students who are taking education in healthcare field. This case can be reduced with some interventions. Therefore, studies should be continued in order to reduce the obesity prejudice and to increase awareness of the healthcare staff of the future about the obesity.