The status of middle school textbooks and curriculum in terms of nutrition education and nutrition self-sufficiency of middle school students

It can be said that the importance of nutrition increases in the school period where development and growth is accelerated and cognitive and learning functions gain importance in order to lead a quality and healthy life in all stages of life. As the nutritional habits acquired during childhood will be reflected in adulthood, the nutritional status of school-age children should be well evaluated, the basic information about nutrition in children, adequate and balanced nutrition habits should be gained. Therefore, it aimed to determine whether the examination of achievements related with nutrition education in secondary school level textbooks of the second stage of primary education in Turkey and to evaluate the differentiation of nutrition self-efficacy of secondary school students in terms of various variables. In the first part of the study, the acquisitions of 11 books in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades of schools were determined by the Ministry of Education in the 2018-2014 academic year for Science, Turkish, Social Studies and Health courses are examined for nutritional education achievements. In the second part, nutrition self-efficacy scale was applied to 470 students, 248 girls and 222 boys in two schools, one in the village and one in the central school of Ankara.According to the findings obtained from the study, there was no achievements on nutrition education in the textbooks of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. According to the results of the survey analysis, the level of nutritional self-efficacy was found higher in the students studying in the center than in the ones studying in the village school. However, the level of nutritional self-efficacy does not differ according to class, gender and number of people in the family. Within the framework of the results obtained, it is recommended to add achievements related to nutrition education to secondary school textbooks. Key Words: Nutrition education, achievements, nutrition self-efficacy.