Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the usefulness and the effectiveness of the nutrition education website 'ifood (http://ifood.or.kr)' for children. A total of 262 children (5th and 6th graders) participated in the self-education program using the website which consisted of 4 sessions every two weeks. In each session, they were asked to answer some questions on the comprehensiveness of each topic while navigating the website. Nutrition knowledge (20 items), dietary attitudes (7 items), and dietary behaviors (10 items) were evaluated using questionnaires before and after the education. After the education, the usefulness and readability of the website was also evaluated. Most (97.2%) of the responders reported that the education using this website was helpful, 97.3% thought that the contents were reliable, 90.1% responded that the contents were easy to understand, and 88.8% answered that they would revisit 'ifood'. The menus they liked best were "Interesting games" for 35.8%, "How can I cook?" for 17.8%, "How can I become slim" for 16.4%. This website might be more attractive by providing a "greater variety of contents in detail", "more music, motion pictures and images", "more interesting games". After the education, there was a significant increase in nutrition knowledge scores from 10.9 to 13.1. Although the total scores of dietary attitudes and dietary behaviors did not improve, there was a significant increase in each of some questions. These results showed that "ifood", a nutritional education website, was desirable in reliability, aesthetics and enjoyability, and was effective in improving nutrition knowledge and some of dietary attitudes and behaviors in children.

• Keywords: web-based nutrition education; website; evaluation; children