Comparison of nutrition education methods among high school students

Abstract

Adolesence is an important life period and has crucial importance for the development of appropriate eating habits and a healthy diet. Dietary and educational interventions may help improving diet and thus may provide prevention from the development of lifestyle related diseases during both adolescence and in the future adulthood. Peer-led-nutritional-education (PLNE) (n=36); video-mediated-nutrition-education (VMNE) (n=36); nutrition-education-withvisual- tools (NEGVT) (n=36); and traditional-nutrition-education (TNE) (n=108) were performed.The aim of this population based educational intervention study with a pretest-posttest design study was to evaluate the effectiveness of different nutrition education methods on nutrition knowledge level in vocational high school students in Istanbul, Turkey. A total of 216 students from 3 high schools in Usküdar, Istanbul were randomly assigned to three different educational intervention method groups (video-mediated, peer-directed and visual aids), each consisting of 72 students to compare the effectiveness with the traditional education method. Before and after each training, nutrition knowledge level of adolescents were evaluated with Adolescent-Nutrition-Knowledge-Level (ABBID) questionnaire which includes subunits of adequate and balanced nutrition; essential nutrients, and malnutrition related diseases with a total score between 0 to 38. Shapiro-Wilk test, Mann Whitney U test, Wilcoxon Signed test and Spearman rho correlation analysis were applied for statistical analyses. All methods provided significantly increased post-test total scores compared to pre-test scores(p<0.05). Participants in PLNE had significantly higher post-test scores in all subunits of questionnaire than the participants of TNE(p<0.05). This study provides the efficacy and superiority in the success of peer led nutrition education method among adolescence. Further educational studies are required for the determination of the long-term effects of selected education on nutrition knowledge levels, habits, and behaviors of adolescents.