Effectiveness Of Nutrition Education Program Research Articles

The NATs—Nutrition achievement tests for the elementary grades

This paper describes the development and validation of 3 nutrition achievement tests for kindergarten through sixth grade. Test I was for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade; test II, for third and fourth grade; and test III, for fifth and sixth grade. Test developers constructed 2 prototypes of each test from items paired for content and verified for accuracy. A nationwide sample of 3,393 pupils who had previously received a minimum of 8 hours of nutrition education responded to the prototypes. Based on item-analysis data, the better items from each pair were selected for the final form of the nutrition achievement tests, which appear to be valid and reliable. The tests may be used to evaluate individual children's achievement or to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition education programs.

Low-income and elderly populations

1. Rationale At present, funds for nutrition education are limited, frequently not identifIed for this purpose, and thus have to compete with other program priorities. In addition, there is limited cost data available which can be used to determine the actual cost and effectiveness of nutrition education programs for planning purposes. For a variety of reasons, many program administrators do not recognize the need for nutrition education and give it little priority in allocating funds.

Factors associated with children's food habits

Three hundred seven first through third grade children and their parents were surveyed to determine factors associated with food preferences, dietary complexity, and school lunch participation. Results indicate that these three variables are independent of one another and should not be used interchangeably to represent food habits when evaluating the effectiveness of nutrition education programs for children in the primary grades. Furthermore, each of the three variables is related to different sets of factors from the home, school, and social environments. Parental attitudes and social factors are the most important predictors of children's food preferences and dietary complexity. Employment status of the mother, the child's nutrition knowledge, and perception of a friend's food preferences are related to school lunch participation. Recommendations for nutrition education based on these findings are discussed.