Research to determine the awareness of the dietitians' registered at the Turkish Dietitians Association about the impact of the climate crisis on nutrition and their approach to the preventing the climate crisis

Sustainable nutrition concept is one of the most important themes of global public health. The theme is linked with the holistic approach of health. In this research, it is aimed to determine the awareness of dietitians who are members of the Turkish Dietitians Association about the impact of the climate crisis on nutrition, to define their views and approaches on the prevention of the climate crisis, to have the opinions of dietitians on how to reflect the concept of the climate crisis in practice. The research was designed as a descriptive study. 114 volunteer dietitians who are members of the Turkish Dietetic Association participated in the study. A questionnaire including of five parts was applied online between 12 August 2021 and 18 April 2022. SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics23.0) package program was used for the analysis of statistical data. Ethical Board approval and institutional permission were obtained. 99.1% of dietitians participated in the study know the concept of climate crisis and 97.4% of them know the concepts of sustainable nutrition, and 89.6% of them think that the climate crisis requires sustainable nutrition. While 86.9% of dietitians think that the climate crisis requires sustainable nutrition, 90.4% think that the climate crisis concerns dietitians. It has been observed that most of the dietitians who graduated from the faculty before 2010 know the concept of climate crisis. (p=0.022) Dietitians having healthy eating habits are more familiar with the concept of climate crisis than those with unhealthy eating habits (p=0.01). Those who know the concept of climate crisis are aware of the concept of sustainable nutrition significantly more than those who do not (p=0.00). In conclusion, activities in order to improve the awareness of the dietitians about climate crisis and sustainable nutrition are recommended to be conducted.