Impact of Nutritional Awareness Package on Secondary School Students for the Improvement of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices

Nutrition plays an important role in the overall development of an individual. The span of school going age is the best age for gaining and giving nutrition education which has lifelong effect on the individual health. In the present study an attempt was made to observe the impact of imparting nutrition related knowledge to school going male and female children. Nutrition education was provided to school going children to improve their nutritional status and well being. A questionnaire was prepared covering different questions pertaining to various topics viz., nutrients and their functions, sources of various nutrients in the diet, balanced diet, importance of green leafy vegetables and other vegetables and fruits in diet, iron deficiency disorder and other deficiency disorders and their prevention. The questionnaire was pre-tested so that the appropriate data can be obtained. Nutrition education was imparted to 2038 selected school children for six weeks. Lectures were delivered with the help of visual aids, i. e., charts and posters; play activities, quizes etc. After six weeks, the same questionnaire was used for post testing so as to see the gain in nutritional knowledge. Aggregated scores were computed to find out the pre and post knowledge and increment in knowledge was determined. It was found that nutrition education had a positive effect on increasing the knowledge scores of school children and was very beneficial for improving the status of school children. Maximum knowledge gain was 33.95% and minimum was 25.85 % and which was reported in the age group of 16-17 years in case of boys and 10-12 years in case of girls. Girls of age group 16-17 years showed the highest attitude gain i. e.30.04% whereas the lowest score was 25.68% among girls of age group of 10-12 years. Girls of age group 16-17 years showed the highest attitude gain i. e.30.04% whereas the lowest score was 25.68% for girls of age group of 10-12 years. Nutrition education can be used for imparting good eating habits and improving nutritional status of children.