The Study of Relationship Between Health Literacy and Nutritional Practice in High School Adolescents in Tehran

Abstract

Background and Objective:­The health literacy,skills and abilities of individuals are in line with appropriate decision making in the field of health promotion. Adolescents are the age groups whose basic health literacy is essential for their nutritional practice . The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between health literacy and nutritional practice in adolescents. Methods:The present study is a descriptive cross-sectional study that was performed on 400 boy and girl youngsters were selected by multistage-random sampling during the academic year 2015. The data were collected through questionnaires that included three parts: a) individual characteristics ­b) health literacy (HELMA)­­c)the­nutritional­practice. Data analysis was performed with SPSS version 20 and proportional tests. Results:50% of female participants, with an average age of 17 years and 74.5 % of adolescents had Limited ( inadequate and not so adequate) health literacy, 68 percent had average nutritional practice. There was a direct correlation between aspects of health literacy with nutritional practice. Namely, by increasing health literacy, nutritional practice is improved. (p-value< 0/001). Conclusion: The results of this study showed the role of health literacy in the nutritional practice of the adolescents. Due to high levels of limited health literacy in adolescents, health education interventions are necessary to improve health literacy among teenagers.

Keywords

• health literacy
• adolescents
• nutritional practice