A Contextual Nutrition Education Program Improves Nutrition Knowledge and Attitudes of South African Teachers and Learners

Abstract

Background: Evaluating the impact of a nutrition education program could provide insight into the effectiveness of an intervention. Researchers tested the hypothesis that a theory-based contextual nutrition education program (NEP) would improve the nutrition knowledge, attitudes, and dietary practices (KAP) of teachers and learners.Methods: Twenty three teachers who taught nutrition in Grades 4–7 (treatment school, n = 12) and 681 learners (treatment school, n = 350) participated in the study. In this quasi-experimental study, two primary schools were randomly selected to implement a contextual NEP. The nutrition KAP were assessed using previously validated questionnaires. The treatment school teachers taught nutrition using a developed nutrition education manual, while the control school teachers taught nutrition in the usual manner. Random effects Generalized Least Squares regression estimated the difference in the teachers' and learners' KAP for the treatment and control schools; p = 0.025 for a one-tailed test.Results: At post-implementation, the treatment school teachers' had higher total nutrition knowledge mean score (85.5% ± 8.2, p = 0.003) compared to the control school. Within the treatment school, total nutrition knowledge mean score of the teachers improved by 14.1%, p ≤ 0.001. Learners in the treatment school had higher total nutrition knowledge (53.2% ± 16.9, p = 0.002) and nutrition attitude (63.9% ± 19.7, p = 0.001) scores compared to learners in the control school. Within the treatment school, learners' total nutrition knowledge and nutrition attitudes scores increased by 4.9%, p ≤ 0.001 and 6.9%, p ≤ 0.001, respectively. The dietary practices of the teachers and the learners, and the nutrition attitudes of the teachers in the treatment school showed no significant within school improvement or in comparison with the control school (p > 0.025).Conclusions: The NEP led to the improvement in the teachers' and the learners' nutrition knowledge and the learners' nutrition attitudes. However, no significant improvement in the dietary practices of either teachers or learners was found.

The Efficacy of Workplace Interventions on Improving the Dietary, Physical Activity and Sleep Behaviours of School and Childcare Staff: A Systematic Review

“…Of the remaining 125 articles included for full-text assessment, 118 were excluded as they did not meet eligibility criteria (see Figure 1 ). Seven articles [ 17 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ] reporting on six unique studies were included in this review. No additional articles were obtained through author contact.…”

“…Of the six included studies, two were conducted in the U.S. [ 17 , 37 ], and one trial each in Canada [ 36 ], China [ 38 ], South Africa [ 39 ] and Taiwan [ 34 ]. Three of the studies employed cluster randomised-controlled trial designs [ 17 , 37 , 38 ], and three were conducted using quasi-experimental designs [ 34 , 36 , 39 ]. Trials were conducted between 1996 [ 36 ] and 2015 [ 39 ] and had a duration between 4 months [ 36 ] and 6 months [ 38 ] and up to 2 years [ 17 , 34 , 37 ].…”

“…No studies were conducted in childcare centres (see Table 1 ). Five were conducted in elementary schools, with the number of participating schools ranging from two [ 39 ] to 32 [ 17 ]. One study was conducted in two middle schools [ 38 ].…”

“…One study was conducted in two middle schools [ 38 ]. Sample sizes ranged from 23 [ 39 ] to 364 [ 34 ] teachers and the average age of participants ranged from 20 [ 34 ] to 54 years [ 36 ]. All of the included studies reported a higher proportion (up to 98% [ 17 ]) of female participants than males.…”

“…All of the included studies reported a higher proportion (up to 98% [ 17 ]) of female participants than males. Four studies included teaching staff only [ 17 , 34 , 38 , 39 ], and two targeted all school staff (e.g., including principals, secretaries) [ 36 , 37 ]. Two studies also reported participant characteristics at the student level [ 17 , 39 ].…”