Status and Need Assessment on Nutrition & Dietary Life Education among Nutrition Teachers in Elementary, Middle and High Schools

Article information

Korean J Community Nutr. 2016;21(2):152-164

Publication date (electronic) : 2016 April 30

doi : https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2016.21.2.152

Na Gyeong Oh , Su Jin Gwon , Kyung Won Kim ¹, Cheong Min Sohn ², Hae Ryun Park ³, Jung Sook Seo

Department of Food and Nutrition, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan, Korea.

¹Department of Food and Nutrition, Seoul Women's University, Seoul, Korea.

²Department of Food and Nutrition, Wonkwang University, Iksan, Korea.

³Department of Food and Nutrition, Myongji University, Yongin, Korea.

Corresponding author: Jung Sook Seo. Department of Food and Nutrition, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-Ro, Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk 38541, Republic of Korea. Tel: (053) 810-2875, Fax: (053) 810-4768, jsseo@ynu.ac.kr

Received 2016 January 28; Revised 2016 April 20; Accepted 2016 April 25.

Abstract

Objectives

This study was conducted to investigate the status and need for nutrition and dietary life education among nutrition teachers at schools. These characteristics were analyzed if they were different between elementary schools and middle-high schools.

Methods

Subjects were 151 nutrition teachers from 70 elementary schools, 41 middle schools and 40 high schools in 17 cities nationwide selected by two-stage stratified cluster sampling process. Survey questionnaires included the items on general characteristics, status and need assessment for nutrition and dietary life education. Chi-square test or t-test was used for data analysis by school groups.

Results

Nutrition education was implemented at 65.7% of elementary schools and 51.9% of middle-high schools. Nutrition education was mainly performed in 'discretionary activities·extracurricular activities' at elementary school and through 'newsletters, school homepage, foodservice bulletin board' at middle-high school (p<0.001). The most needed topic for nutrition education in nutrition teachers was 'healthy dietary habits and table manners' and this was not significantly different by school groups. Responses on adequate frequency (p<0.01), methods used for nutrition education (p<001), materials for nutrition education (p<0.001), information sources for nutrition education (p<0.001) were significantly different by school groups. Major tasks for activating nutrition education included 'securing the time for implementing nutrition education by reducing work loads' and 'developing standardized nutrition education materials' in schools.

Conclusions

Nutrition education at schools might be activated by improving working conditions of nutrition teachers and developing the practical programs that reflect the needs of nutrition teachers.

Keywords: nutrition teacher; nutrition education; needs assessment; children; adolescents

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant(13162MFDS160) from Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2013.

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Article information Continued

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Funded by : Ministry of Food and Drug Safetyhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003569

Award ID : 13162MFDS160

Table 1

General characteristics of the study subjects

1) N (%)

†) test statistic by the Fisher-Freeman-Halton test

‡) p-value by Fisher's exact test

^**: p<0.01, ^***: p<0.001

Table 2

Status of nutrition & dietary life education at schools

1) N (%), 2)~5) Subjects were asked to choose three responses for each question.

^**: p<0.01, ^***: p<0.001

†) test statistic by the Fisher-Freeman-Halton test

Table 3

Difficulty in implementing nutrition & dietary life education

1) Subjects were asked to choose three responses for each question, 2) N (%)

†) test statistic by the Fisher-Freeman-Halton test

^***: p<0.001

Table 4

Needs regarding the topics of nutrition & dietary life education among nutrition teachers

1) Each item was measured by a 5 point scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much).

2) Mean±SD

^*: p<0.05, ^**: p<0.01, ^***: p<0.001

Table 5

Needs for nutrition & dietary life education among nutrition teachers

1~3) Subjects were asked to choose three responses for each question. 4) Mean ±SD

5) N (%)

†) test statistic by the Fisher-Freeman-Halton test

‡) p-value by Fisher's exact test

^*: p<0.05, ^***: p<0.001

Table 6

The tasks needed for activating nutrition & dietary life education at schools

1) t value by t-test

2) Each item was measured by a 5 point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

3) Mean ±SD

^*: p<0.05