Knowledge levels of nutrition of the staff working at school canteens

The aim of this study is to determine knowledge level of nutrition of the staff working at school canteens. The study was carried on total 185 staff, 97 men and 88 women, working at state primary and secondary schools within the borders of the town of Gebze in the city of Kocaeli.The data of the study was gathered through the technique of questionnaire and analyzed using the package program of ?Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS 13.0 for Windows). In order to evaluate the data obtained t test, one way variance analysis (ANOVA), tukey test and chi-square test were used at independent groups.It was found that 38.9% of the staff were graduates of a primary school, 48.1% were graduates of a high school and an equal school; 28.1 % had no social insurance and 30.8% had no nutrition education before; 60.5% worked as a canteen staff for a period of 1 ? 5 years; 94.1% had a health examination before they started working, and 88.6% had been taking periodical heath examination.The scores got from nutrition knowledge questionnaire were turned into percentage. According to these percentages, it was determined that mean score of nutrition knowledge of all staff included in the study was 67.09±14.51 (mid level). Mean score of nutrition knowledge of men was higher than that of women and that there was a significant difference statistically between the groups. It was also found that education level of the staff had an impact on the difference between the mean scores of nutrition knowledge.Depending on the findings obtained in the study, it is recommended that necessary precautions be taken concerning the awareness of the staff working at school canteens over nutrition that would be a significant effect on the nutrition of children spending a certain time of their day at school.Key words: Canteen, staff, knowledge level of nutrition