Evaluation of the relationship between nutritional literacy levels and body mass index of high school adolescents

In this study, it is aimed to determine the nutritional literacy status of high school adolescents and to evaluate the relationship between body mass index. The study was reached online with the Google Survey method to high school students residing in Tuzla District of Istanbul. The study was conducted with 400 high school age adolescents, 225 girls and 175 boys, aged between 15 and 18, between 26 December 2022 and 30 March 2023. In the questionnaire form, demographic information form, anthropometric measurements, dietary habits, food consumption record and Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale (ABOÖ) were used. An announcement was made on social media and a questionnaire was applied to the volunteer participants who received parent/guardian approval. The questionnaires applied to the participants were evaluated statistically with the SPSS 25 program. The statistical significance level in the tests was evaluated as p<0.05. In our study, the mean body weight of female adolescents was 56.7 ±10.4 kg, and the mean BMI was 21.1±3.6 kg/ m²; The mean body weight of male adolescents was 71.4 ±14.3 kg, and the mean BMI was 22.8±4.5 kg/ m². According to the BMI percentile classification, 4.3% of the participating adolescents are undernourished (PEM), 12% are underweight, 60.3% are normal, 14.8% are overweight, and 8.8% are obese. The ABOY score of the adolescents was 67.90±13.84 (intermediate level). The nutritional literacy score of girls (69.37±12.60) was higher than that of boys (66.00±15.13) (p=0.009; p<0.01). Adolescents in the obese category had the lowest score, but no significant correlation was found between the adolescents' body mass indexes and their nutritional literacy scores (p=0.172). Nutrition literacy levels can be increased by giving nutrition lessons to adolescents and their parents by dietitians. It is thought that the results obtained in this field may contribute to new researches to be done in the future. Keyword: Adolescent, Nutrition Literacy. Body Mass Index