A contextual nutrition education program improves nutrition knowledge and attitudes of South African teachers and learners

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dc.contributor.author Kupolati, Mojisola D.
dc.contributor.author MacIntyre, Una Elizabeth
dc.contributor.author Gericke, Gerda J.
dc.contributor.author Becker, Piet J.
dc.date.accessioned 2020-02-25T05:31:13Z
dc.date.available 2020-02-25T05:31:13Z
dc.date.issued 2019-09-18
dc.description.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 knowledgemean 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. en_ZA
dc.description.department Human Nutrition en_ZA
dc.description.librarian am2020 en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorship The Institute for Food, Nutrition, andWell-being of the University of Pretoria, the Nestle Nutrition Institute Africa, and the Association of African Universities. en_ZA
dc.description.uri https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health# en_ZA
dc.identifier.citation Kupolati MD, MacIntyre UE, Gericke GJ and Becker P (2019) A Contextual Nutrition Education Program Improves Nutrition Knowledge and Attitudes of South African Teachers and Learners. Frontiers in Public Health 7:258. DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00258. en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn 2296-2565 (online)
dc.identifier.other 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00258
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/73521
dc.language.iso en en_ZA
dc.publisher Frontiers Media en_ZA
dc.rights © 2019 Kupolati, MacIntyre, Gericke and Becker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). en_ZA
dc.subject Contextual nutrition education program en_ZA
dc.subject Nutrition knowledge en_ZA
dc.subject Teachers en_ZA
dc.subject Learners en_ZA
dc.subject Impact evaluation en_ZA
dc.subject Attitudes en_ZA
dc.subject Practices en_ZA
dc.subject Knowledge, attitudes, and dietary practices (KAP) en_ZA
dc.subject Nutrition education program (NEP) en_ZA
dc.title A contextual nutrition education program improves nutrition knowledge and attitudes of South African teachers and learners en_ZA
dc.type Article en_ZA


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