Evaluation of nutrition literacy and attitudes of a public ınstitution employees towards healthy eating

Evaluation of nutrition literacy and attitudes of a public ınstitution employees towards healthy eating Aim: In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the nutritional literacy and attitudes of individuals working in a public institution towards healthy eating Materials and Methods: The research, which was designed in descriptive cross-sectional type, was carried out between 01 June-30 September 2022 with 319 personnel working within the Provincial Directorate of Youth and Sports. "Personal Information Form", "Attitudes towards Healthy Eating Scale (SBIÖ)" and "Adult Nutrition Literacy Evaluation Tool (YBOYDA)" were used to collect data. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, normality tests, independent samples t test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), posthoc (Tukey, LSD), pearson correlation and linear regression tests were used. Significance was tested at the p<0.05 level. Results: It was found out that 82.1% of the participants had a high and ideal level of healthy eating attitude and 77.1% had a sufficient level of nutritional literacy. It was determined that nutritional literacy increased the level of attitude towards healthy eating (ß=0.255). A positive significant difference was found between the level of education, BMI, how the nutritional knowledge level is evaluated and how often the food label is read while purchasing, and the level of attitude towards healthy eating (p<0.05). There was a negative significant difference between the frequency of fast food consumption, the frequency of consumption of junk food and the level of skipping meals, and the level of attitude towards healthy eating (p<0.05). While there was a positive significant difference between education level and nutritional literacy level (ß=0.560), a negative significant difference was found between fast food consumption frequency and nutritional literacy level (ß=-0.137). Conclusion: As a result of the research, the levels of attitudes towards healthy eating were found to be high and the nutritional literacy levels were to be sufficient. Attitudes towards healthy nutrition and factors affecting the level of nutrition literacy should be emphasized and necessary studies should be carried out in this regard Key Words: Nutrition literacy, healthy eating, public employees, attitude