Promoting nutritional education in primary school children

Abstract

Inadequate nutrition knowledge leads to poor dietary choices to the detriment of the overall health of individuals and populations due to the likelihood of the development of various ill health conditions such as obesity and malnutrition. Childhood is the stage that sets a nutritional precedent for life and the attitudes, and beliefs developed in childhood tend to last for the individual's lifespan. Therefore children should be provided with adequate nutritional knowledge to enable longer term healthier food choices. This study aimed to devise an appropriate strategy for the promotion of nutrition education in primary school children and to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. A survey was used to assess the level of nutrition knowledge in children followed by the provision of nutrition education through sessions focusing on adopting easily understandable terms for nutrients and teaching at their level of understanding and education. Techniques such as audiovisual aids and question-and-answer sessions were used to make the sessions entertaining. The outcomes were evaluated through the same survey that was used pre-intervention. Data are presented from a quantitative analysis. The outcomes of the first survey showed a major need for providing nutrition education to students as the students were barely aware of nutrients and the functions of foodstuffs and therefore made poor food choices. However, the post-intervention survey showed a significant improvement in nutritional knowledge, and the majority of the students knew how to make healthier food choices.