Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a nutrition education program to prevent breakfast skipping for elementary school children. Subjects were 102 5th grade students (51 boys, 51 girls) as the "education group" and 200 5th grade students (102 boys, 98 girls) as the "non-education group." The nutrition education program consisted of 4 lessons over an 8-week period. Teaching materials, including flash animation, panel, PowerPoint, and a bingo game, were developed for this education program. After education, there was significant increase in the percentage of students who had eaten breakfast every day, understood that breakfast has a great effect on health, and will eat breakfast every day in the education group compared to non-education group. Parents' positive behavior toward daily breakfast preparation and the percentage of parents who had their children eat breakfast every day increased significantly. The students of the education group responded positively to the questions of the benefit and importance of nutrition education. The flash animation received high marks, especially in terms of understanding of contents, content clarity, emphasis of the core content, delivery of necessary knowledge, and applicability of breakfast. This study shows the effectiveness of a 4-lesson nutrition education taught during an 8-week time period to induce changes in recognizing the importance of breakfast and in behavior toward breakfast consumption.

• Keywords: breakfast skipping; nutrition education program; elementary school students