Impact of Eight Lessons Intervention on Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grade Students' Nutrition Knowledge PDF Download

Author: Maya Moustafa Itani
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In Lebanon, the prevalence of overweight and obesity is approaching those in the US and other parts of the world. Since childhood obesity is related to many adv erse health consequences, community nutritional interventions are needed to addr ess the epidemic of childhood obesity. This study examined the effect of culturally appropriate nutritional education d elivered to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students enrolled in three private schools i n greater Beirut on students' nutrition knowledge. This was done in order to enc ourage and teach them how to change and modify their lifestyle behavior and eati ng patterns toward a healthier and more nutritive performance. The study was divided into two phases: assessment and intervention. The assessme nt phase involved collecting anthropometric measurements, 24-hr food recalls, ca nteen's assessment questionnaire, schools' personnel interviews, and pretest nut rition knowledge questionnaires. Whereas the intervention phase involved deliver ing eight nutrition education lessons to students over a period of eight weeks. This was examined by providing the students with 25 multiple choice questions at the end of each phase; a scoring system ranging from -1 to 1 for each question was used to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. The questions revol ved around nutrition including the importance of breakfast, healthy snacking, fr uits and vegetables, fibers, physical activity as well as the avoidance of high fat and high sugar food items. Post-test scores of the intervention group increased significantly more than the post-test scores of the control group in nine questions out of the twenty five included in the questionnaire. Eight questions showed significant increase in th e scores of both groups. Eight questions didn't show significant increase in pos t-test scores of both groups. Although this study only demonstrated moderate changes in the students' nutritio n knowledge, however, there is a need to encourage educators to integrate such p rograms in their curriculum since this may in the long term improve children's a ttitudes towards making better food choices.