Book Description

The increasing incidence of obesity and nutrition related chronic diseases is becoming a public health concern. It is important for health professionals to understand how they can best educate the public in order to prevent this epidemic from worsening. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether an interactive nutrition education program is effective in prompting dietary behavior changes in adolescent females. The subjects of this study were 9 Caucasian adolescent females from Reading, Pennsylvania. The mean age was 11.6 years old. The subjects were interviewed to obtain twenty-four hour recalls to use as baseline data and as a nutrition needs assessment. They were also asked a set of general nutrition knowledge questions. An interactive nutrition education program was designed to meet the nutrition concerns of the particular audience. The initial twenty-four hour recalls showed the average adolescent participant's diet was deficient in milk, fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. Subjects participated in a nutrition education intervention that consisted of learning about nutrition, planning snacks, and goal setting. The intervention was designed to facilitate goal setting and behavior changes that would increase the consumption of the deficient food groups. Twenty-four hour food recall data was collected after the nutrition education program and compared to the initial data to determine whether the students implemented behavior changes that would affect their nutritional intake. After the nutrition education program, the average number of grain and meat servings increased. The average number of fats, oils, sweets, and dairy products decreased. There was a slight decrease in the average number of servings from the fruit group and a slight increase the average number of vegetable servings. The nutrition intervention resulted in 8 out of the 9 subjects creating and remembering their individual nutrition intake goaL Five of the students met their individualized nutrition goals on the day the food recall data was collected. Nutrition knowledge did not change due to the intervention. The majority of subjects were able to name the food groups and state the recommended number of servings for the food groups before and after the intervention. The difference in number of servings from the food groups before and after the intervention was slight; therefore, it was difficult to relate the change in intake to the effectiveness of the education session. This intervention was effective in motivating students to think about nutrition goals. The majority of students actually implemented their individual goals. An expansion of the sample size for this study would help to improve the analysis of individualized goals. A larger sample of goals would enable the nutrition goals to be categorized and evaluated based on the food group or food choices they influence.