Nutrition education intervention to increase nutrition knowledge and healthy food choices among fourth- and Fifth-graders in East Lubbock, Texas: A promised neighborhood project

Date

2016-11-29

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Abstract

This purpose of this study was to implement a nutrition education intervention to promote healthy eating behaviors among elementary school-aged children in 4th and 5th grades in East Lubbock, Texas. A total of 84 children in 4th and 5th grades at Joan Y. Ervin Elementary participated in the study. The intervention was informed by the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), which was used to guide the intervention’s strategies and activities. The intervention consisted of 8 nutrition lessons with cooking demonstrations and was implemented for a total of 90 minutes (45 minutes for each components) weekly over a 3-month period. The intervention provided children information about MyPlate, how to make smart choices when shopping, eating out, and cooking at home, and how to read food labels in order to make smart dietary choices. Handouts, worksheets, and recipes were given to the children to take home. A validated and reliability-tested questionnaire was used to evaluated children’s nutrition knowledge, fruit, vegetable, and milk intakes, and nutrition-related self-efficacy. Findings from the analysis of the questionnaire at pre- and post-intervention showed that the intervention significantly impacted the children’s knowledge (from 14.30 to 17.98, p = .001) and self-efficacy related to eating low-fat dairy foods and finding the serving size on the food label (from 3.42 to 3.81, p = .04 and from 3.30 to 3.91, p = .032, respectively). There was no significant difference in fruit, vegetable, and milk intake and other self-efficacy items. The results of this study are useful in providing information and knowledge which can assist researchers involved in promoting healthy eating behaviors among elementary school-aged children.

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Keywords

nutrition education, children, intervention

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