A study into the nutrition knowledge and habits of the first and last grade students of the Faculty of Medicine, Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University

The study was carried out to determine the nutrition habits and the nutrition knowledge level of the students of faculty of medicine at Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University over 275 students in total, 174 first grade and 101 sixth grade students.A questionnaire was applied to 275 students under observation and the data was collected between the dates of April 2012 and May 2012, and it was analyzed through SPSS Windows 15.0 package program. Of the students, 46.25% were boys and 53.75% were girls.Upon the evaluation of the body mass index of the students regarding their grades, it was found that 78.7% of the first grade students were in normal group, 9.8% were in overweight / obese group and 11.5% were in slim group. As for sixth grade students, 82.2 were in normal group, 13.9% were in overweight / obese group and 4.0 were in slim group. It was determined that students skipped meals and the meal skipped was lunch for the first grade students at the rate of 30.5% and it was breakfast and lunch for the sixth grade students at the rate of 20.8%. It was found that 51.1% of the first grade students consumed three meals, 16.7% consumed four, 8.6% consumed six meals, while 60.4% of the sixth grade student consumed three, 20.8% consumed four, 5.0% consumed five meals as main meal and snacks. Of the first grade students, 38.5% and 55.4% of the sixth grade students pointed out that they do not have meals when they are sad, 37.9% of the first grade students and 58.4% of sixth grade students have meals when they are joyful, and 33.3% of the first grade students expressed that they have less meal when they are tired while 44.6% of the sixth grade students indicated that they do not have a change in their eating habits. It was found that sixth grade students responded the questions concerning basic nutrition knowledge more accurately compared to first grade students. The mean scores of first grade students at nutrition knowledge were 55.9%, while those of the sixth grade students were 62.1%. Total general nutrition knowledge scores of the sixth grade students were found significantly higher than first grade students. As a conclusion, it was found that medical education has a positive impact on the nutrition knowledge levels of the students.