Abstract:

Within the competences included in the Degree of Primary Education, it is made reference to students in training to learn to "analyze and critically incorporate the most relevant issues of society." There are several investigations that have highlighted the difficulties that university students present when they use critical thinking to solve a problem or make informed decisions. The rapid scientific-technological revolution that our society is experiencing has brought with it media currently having a very important role in our lives and being are very influenced by them when making decisions. The strong development of marketing strategies for the advertising about the products of the food sector, manage to convince a large part of the target population to which it is addressed, affecting consumer decisions in both adults and children and adolescents, creating false beliefs about food. It is necessary to develop critical thinking in students, equipping future citizens with skills to analyze and interpret advertising messages. It is necessary to learn to make responsible decisions regarding their health and to promote healthy habits. The objective of this research is to analyze the knowledge the students of the Primary Education Degree have acquired after completing their compulsory education, to know if they are influenced by advertising or by certain beliefs or myths related to food and their attitudes towards caring for their own health. The future primary school teachers must have adequate scientific and health literacy to positively influence the education of children in the primary stage. Within the university competitions the development of critical thinking is one of them, and this is very necessary to make reasoned and argued decisions about our diet and our health. The results obtained after the analysis of the questionnaire show that the future primary teachers of the sample have very superficial knowledge about food, they know the importance of a healthy diet for their health but they confuse the functions of each one of the nutrients and they are partly influenced by advertising, to the point of conditioning the choice of food based on it (vitamin supplements, vegetable milks, bottled water, foods labelled as "natural", etc. Regarding attitudes but claim to eat healthy, only 50% admit that they use fresh and not very elaborated food, or food is chosen more for the taste than for its nutritional value Between 20 and 30% have mistaken beliefs about food. We can conclude from this study that future primary teachers who attend 2nd grade , have not yet developed critical thinking to deal with socio-scientific issues such as false beliefs or food myths, or the influence of advertising or false news, so we think it is necessary to design teaching strategies to achieve this competence in the teachers in training. Generating attitudes and behaviour both in students and society requires time, and consistency in the messages that are provided from the school and from the family, as well as from health services, which must also recognize their responsibility in the Education for health.

Keywords:

Advertising, nutrition, critical thinking, education for health.