A Game-Based Nutrition Education: Teaching Healthy Eating to Primary School Students

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study is to determine eating habits of school age children and to evaluate the effect of nutrition education with games on gaining healthy eating habits.
METHODS: The study, which is quasi-experimental with pre test-post test experimental model without a control group, was conducted at a primary school. The population of the study includes the 2nd-grade students at the age of 8. The population consists of 59 primary school students who participated in all nutrition education and completed the pre-test, the other two post-tests. The data were analyzed via descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon, McNemar, Shapiro-Wilk tests.
RESULTS: According to the findings, 59.3% of the students didn’t have any nutrition education and 84.7% of them considered their eating habits as good. It was also found that 50.8% of the students before the training, 30.5% of them right after the training and 40.7% of them 3 months after the training stated they skipped one of the meals and that it was lunch which was the most frequently skipped meal. Although there was no change in consumption of fresh fruit and fruit juice, there was an increase in the consumption of fresh vegetable and vegetable meals, but this wasn’t transformed to behavior. The consumption of dairy products increased and transformed to behavior. The average nutrition knowledge of the students increased both right after the training and 3 months later.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: It was also suggested that the nutrition education given to the school age children had a positive effect on the nutrition knowledge, attitudes, behaviors.