Özet:

Junk food nutritional habit is a common problem during adolescence. In addition this problem is a topic that should especially be considered for adolescents who have difficulty in accessing lunch due to economic and environmental reasons. The presented descriptive research, was conducted on students in a vocational high school who had difficulty in accessing lunch. The sample consisted of 148 of those students who accepted to participate in the study. Sociodemographical information was obtained by the questionnaire developed by researchers, and eating habits were identified by “Eating Habit Index” (EHI) prepared by Demirezen (1999) and renewed by Demirezen ve Coşansu (2005). 85.1% of the participants were males, and 35,8% of the participants were 17 years-old. 68.2% had medium and 21,6% had low economic income. 33.1% had two meals and 2% had one meal in a day. EHI showed that 24,3% had high risk, 60,8% had medium level risk. Both males and females, and participants from all ages mostly had medium level risk. It was determined that students who had difficulty in accessing lunch displayed risky eating habits. It has been shown that nutrition in adolescents is a problem for both males and females. School health nurses should be employed in schools. It is important that school nurses should inform students about healthy eating behaviors, and that students who have economic inadequacy must be provided with food support via the cooperation of school staff and families.

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