Effects of nutritional education in primary school nutrition behavior and information level

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of nutrition education given to students who are in the fourth grade of a state primary school in Amasya on nutrition knowledge level and behaviors. The study was conducted on a total of 96 students, 58 male and 38 female students It is known that healthy eating habits are gained and survived throughout childhood and nutrition education is of great importance in 7-11 age group primary school children.Nutrition education given to primary school children allows for proper nutrition habits. In this research, it was aimed to increase the basic knowledge level of students on adequate and balanced nutrition through changing nutrition education and to change healthy eating habits positively. The students who participated in the study were divided into two groups as experimental and control groups. The students in the experiment group were given visual and oral training by the researcher for one lesson (40 minutes) per week for four weeks (Experimental group: Girl: 20, Male: 29). The students in the control group were not given any training or material by the researcher (Control group: Girl: 18, Male: 29). After 8 months, a repeat questionnaire was applied to the test and control group for the follow-up test. There was no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of pre-test behavior score and nutrition knowledge level score (p> 0.05), while there was a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of nutrition knowledge level score (p <0.05) In the last test, the behavior scores of the students in the experimental group are significantly higher than the students in the control group. The average score of pre-training nutrition knowledge level of students who participated in nutrition education was 5.78 in the pre-test and this value increased to 9.49 in post-training and 8.63 in retention test. The same mean scores of the control group were calculated as pre-test 4.70, final test 4.28 and retention test 5.20, respectively. According to this, an increase in the nutritional knowledge level of the students attending to the training was observed while a decrease in the knowledge level of the control group students who did not participate in the education was observed.