Abstract :
Objective: The adolescence period is extremely important in gaining healthy eating behaviors since it is the last stage in which the foundations of adulthood are laid. However, early, middle and late adolescents may differ physically, psychologically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially. This study was conducted to evaluate the main meal consumption and eating attitudes of early and mid-term adolescents. Method: The data were collected by the researchers using the “face to face interview technique” using the questionnaire. Eating Attitude Test-26” was used to evaluate the eating attitude. A test score of 20 or above was considered a risk. The analysis of the data was done in IBM SPSS Statistics 23 program and p 0.05 value was accepted as the reliability coefficient. Results: A total of 318 adolescents with an average age of 14.5 ± 1.2 years, 185 boys (58.2%), and 133 girls (41.8%) participated in the study. Average Eating Attitude Test-26 score is 20.4 ± 10.7 and accordingly, it was determined that they are at risk in terms of eating attitude. The median test score in the early-term adolescent is higher than in the middle-term adolescent (20.0; 18.0; p 0.05, respectively). The average test scores of those who consumed lunch and dinner more than five meals a week among all participants were lower and statistically significant (p 0.05). While this is valid only for dinner in the early-term adolescent (p 0.05), the average test scores did not differ according to the frequency of main meals in the middle-term adolescent (p 0.05). Conclusion: These results showed that awareness attempts should be conducted in order to give adolescents healthy eating habits and to prevent eating behavior disorders during this period (especially in early adolescence).
