Zeitschrift für Ernährung und Lebensmittelwissenschaften
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An Evaluation of Food Neophobia of the Dietitians

Selen Muftuoglu*, Esra Isildak

Food neophobia has been described as the fear of eating new or unfamiliar foods and it is very typical for people to generally have a fear of new things. However, some people should be more expected to try new foods especially from some occupational groups (for example nutrition, gastronomy, culinary arts, ext.). This study was carried out to determine food neophobia ın dietitians. The study was conducted between October 2018 and December 2018 on 200 dietitians aged between 18-65 years in Ankara, Turkey who volunteered to participate in the study. In this study, a questionnaire form consisting of three parts was used. The first part involved a personal information form with items on age, gender, education levels, anthropometric measurements. The second and the third parts consisted of the multiple choice questions to identify food neophobia and food neophobia questionnaire, respectively. In this study we found that 88.0% of dietitians were female, 92.0% of them were 18 to 27 years of age, 38.4% of them was a university student and 87.5% of them were single. In this study, we found that female dietitians’ BMI value did significantly differ among food neophobia groups. Additionally, willingness to try new foods or harmony of different tastes did significantly differ among food neophobia groups. Also, mood, profession, wondered and healthy things encourage dietitians to try new food and this subject did significantly differ among food neophobia groups. Low FN group had selected to consume more sweets and candy consume than others. Also, medium FN group had selected to consume more meet and meet products consume than others. Lastly, high FN group selected to consume fruit and vegetable and they indicated, they had a balanced diet than others. However, these choices did not significantly differ among food neophobia groups. As a conclusion, this study showed that most of the people who are educated in nutrition and dietetics are not willing to try new foods. One of the most innovative occupation groups are dietitians and the results of this study are quite remarkable and unexpected. In order to increase the awareness of dietitians providing nutrition education to the public, more studies should be conducted with a larger number of sample groups on food neophobia.