Turkish University Students’ Nutritional Habits Regarding Cancer Prevention and Healthy Lifestyles

Abstract

Aim: Chronic disorders have been increasing over the past century, and the relationship with nutrition hasbeen widely discussed. The present study was carried out in order to determine health school students’ nutritionstyles, health lifestyle behavior, and their interactions. <br/><b>Method</b>: With a cross-sectional design, data from 79students in the Nursing School were collected via a socio-demographic data collection form, a nutrition form,and and a Health Promotion Life-Style Profile (HPLP) questionnaire. Percentages, McNemar data, Independentsamplet-test and paired-samples t-test were used in data assessment. <br/><b>Results</b>: No significant differences wereobserved between the number of students with healthy nutrition and mean healthy lifestyle scores, pre andpost-training. There was also no influence of presence of a family member with cancer and weight perception.However, there was a significant difference between HPLP scores before the training and six months followingtraining (p=0.049) and the mean healthy lifestyle scores increased. <br/><b>Conclusion</b>: Students with poor nutritionwho were trained in cancer prevention and healthy diets, demonstrated increase in their HPLP, yet this did notmake a difference to their healthy nutrition behavior.