Abstract

Objective: To assess the impact of a nutrition education program for teachers in the nutritional status, food knowledge and food consumption of their pre basic and basic students, and in the controls. Materials and methods: A nutrition education intervention was conducted in pre basic and basic teachers in a school year, with a pre-post evaluation of their students, compared with a control group. Subjects were 817 students (389 men and 428 women) from pre kindergarten to the second grade. The 465 students of the intervened group were distributed in two schools (Liceo 1 = 283; Liceo 2 = 182) and 352 in the control school. The nutrition intervention consisted in 9 interactive workshops for teachers with the utilization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The pre post evaluation consisted in a nutritional status assessment, and a food and nutrition survey with questions related with food knowledge and food consumption, at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Results: There were no significant differences in nutritional status between the beginning and the end of the intervention. In one of the experimental schools (Liceo 2) there was a significant decrease in obesity, in women and in the age-group 7-9 years. In the experimental group there was a significant improvement in food knowledge and a decrease in non-healthy food consumption. In the control group, consumption of non-healthy food was stable, with a decrease in fruits and vegetables consumption. Conclusions: As it was demonstrated in similar studies, a short interactive nutrition education intervention with utilization of ICT in pre basic and basic teachers can produce positive changes in nutritional status of their students, improving food knowledge and healthy food consumption and decreasing non-healthy food consumption, compared with the control group. However, a strategy to incorporate parents in school nutrition education programs is still a pending issue.