Evaluation of eating behaviors of preschool children

This research, which was conducted in order to evaluate the eating behaviors of children attending official kindergartens of the Ministry of National Education in Kırklareli province, is a descriptive research designed in a quantitative model. The universe of this research consists of the mothers of students attending four kindergartens in the central district of Kırklareli between September 2018 and January 2019. Simple Random Sampling was used as the sampling method and the sample volume was calculated as 314. 316 mothers who had already given consent, participated in the study. Behavioral Pediatrics Feeding Assessment Scale (BPFAS) was applied by the researcher. Schools were visited by the researcher and the data was collected by face-to-face interviews with mothers. Data was evaluated using the SPSS statistical program. The minimum maximum values, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage distributions are given in descriptive statistics. Mann-Whitney Test, Kruskal-Wallis Test, Spearman Correlation Test and Variance Analysis were used for the comparisons between groups. The 53,2% of those children participating in the study were boys and 44,9% were 5 years old. The 50,3% of the children are the students of ''Zübeyde Hanım Kindergarten''. The mean of BPFAS was 52,84 ± 10,69. (The minimum score taken from this scale is 24, and the maximum score is 120). BPFAS levels of children of at least one group were found to be different from others according to their monthly income level. (χ2(3)=9,390, p < 0,05) The source of this significant difference is; the children of those families with a ''0-1600 liras''monthly income level have statistically significant higher scores than those with a ''4501 liras and above'' monthly income level. BPFAS levels of children of at least one group are different from others according to family types. (χ2(2)= 8,731, p < 0,05). Accordingly, the children with a large family type had significantly higher scores than those with an elementary family. When the findings of the scale subscales were evaluated, it was seen that the highest average was in the food selectivity subscale with 18,20 ± 4,57 and the lowest average was in the early period ragged food selectivitity subscale with 7,39 ± 3,21. When the factors affecting the subscales of the scale were examined, it was found that the food selectivity levels of the children of at least one group were different than the others (χ2(4)=12,776, p< 0,05). The source of this significant difference is that the children of mothers with 'secondray school' education level have significantly higher levels of food selectivity than the children of mothers with associate education level. According to the total number of children of the families, the earlt period refusal of children of the least one group was found to be different from those of the others (χ2(2)=7,240, p< 0,05). The reason for this significant difference is that the children of ' one- child' families have significantly higher levels of early food rejection that the children of ' two child families'.