Effectiveness of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) Package on Knowledge Regarding Health Hazards of Junk Food among the Mothers of School Children in Selected Urban Area, Mangalore

Background: 'Eat healthy and live healthy' is one of the essential requirements for long life. Changes in our society have intensified the need for food skills, to the extent that mothers need to become a part of the child's basic education as well as her knowledge for good health and survival. Majority of working mothers of school children are laboured with exhausting commutes, upswings in the households, and stress, leading to a situation where they get to spend limited time in gaining knowledge on junk food. Junk foods are rich in fats and poor in other nutrients. Because of advertisement of junk foods and business as well as busyness society, today's world has been adapted to a system of consumption of junk foods which has several adverse effects on health. Globalisation and urbanisation have greatly affected one's eating items and habits and forced many people to consume fancy and high calorie fast foods. Method: A pre-experimental, one group pre-test pos-test design with an evaluative approach was used in Gujerekere, under Jeppu PHC, Mangalore, on 60 mothers of school children who met the inclusion criteria. Purposive sampling technique was used. Data was collected by administering a structured knowledge questionnaire before and after the administration of IEC package. On the first day, pre test was conducted and after which IEC package was administered. The post test was conducted on the eight day after the administration of IEC package using same structured knowledge questionnaire. Result: Majority of the samples 47 (78.3%) had average knowledge and remaining 13 (21.7%) of them had good knowledge in pre-test and, in post test, majority of the samples 49 (81.7%) had good knowledge and 11 (18.3%) had average knowledge and none of them had poor knowledge regarding health hazards of junk food in pre test and post test. The overall mean percentage level of knowledge is 75.89 with mean and standard deviation 22.767�2746 of post-test was higher than pre-test mean percentage level of knowledge is 60.56 with mean and standard deviation 18.167�3.655. The finding revealed that the calculated 't' value (t59= 13.317) is greater than the table value (t59=2.01) at 0.05 level of significance. It indicated that the administration of IEC package was effective. The finding of the study revealed that there is significant association between pre-test knowledge and mothers' occupation (2=0.035, pless than0.05) and types of family (2=0.042, pless than0.05), whereas no significant association between pre test knowledge and remaining demographic variables. There is significant association between post-test knowledge and family income (2 = 0.025, pless than0.05) and no significant association between post-test knowledge and remaining demographic variables. Interpretation and conclusion: The findings of the study support the need for providing IEC package to improve the knowledge of the mothers of school children regarding health hazards of junk food. The study proved that the mothers have average knowledge regarding health hazards of junk food. Their knowledge improved remarkably after administering IEC package. So the findings also prove that the IEC package was effective in terms of gain in knowledge.