The nutrition literacy levels of preschool teachers working in nutrition friendly scchools: A sample of Turkey

This study, which was conducted in order to determine the nutrition literacy levels of preschool teachers with a nutrition-friendly school certificate working in official independent kindergartens in Turkey and to examine the nutrition literacy levels according to various variables, was carried out according to the screening model. It is one of the quantitative research methods. The universe of the research consists of preschool teachers working in independent kindergartens with a nutrition-friendly school certificate in Turkey in the 2021-2022 academic year. The study group was determined according to the multistage stratified and cluster sampling method. In the study group, there are provinces in 25 sub-regions determined according to the regions included in the Classification of Statistical Regional Units of the Turkish Statistical Institute. In this direction, 10 schools were selected from provinces with 10 or more official independent nutrition-friendly kindergartens, and in provinces with less than 10 official independent nutrition-friendly kindergartens, all nutrition-friendly schools in the province were included in the study. All of the pre-school teachers working in these schools formed the study group. The "Personal Information Form" created by the researcher and the "Adult Nutrition Literacy Assessment Tool" developed by Cesur, Koçoğlu and Sümer (2015) were used as the data collection tool of the research; Data were collected from 979 preschool teachers. The findings obtained in the study were analyzed with appropriate statistical methods. The relationship between categorical data was examined by Chi-Square analysis. When the results of the research are examined, it is seen that 98.5% of the preschool teachers have sufficient nutrition literacy at the level of total nutrition literacy, but when the subsections are examined, the portion amounts, reading the food labels and basic nutrition subsections are examined. literacy levels are analyzed under sub-headings; Mathematical nutrition literacy is insufficient/borderline. At the total nutrition literacy level, it has been determined that the adequate nutrition literacy of the teachers who are between the ages of 21-27, who have a seniority of 22 years in the teaching profession, who participate in nutrition education for themselves and who have health problems. When the tenure variable is examined, it has been determined that the level of adequate nutrition literacy increases as the tenure in a nutrition friendly school shortens. In the research, gender, marital status, education level, attention to food shopping, answers to questions about nutrition-friendly school, nutrition education, nutrition selfassessment, diagnosed health problem, diet or physical activity status for health problems, and physical activity. It was concluded that there were differences in the nutrition literacy subsections in variables such as.KEYWORDS: Preschool Teacher, Nutrition Literacy, Nutrition Friendly School