Educational-based intervention on food labeling: results of the Project “Eat slowly and well and move yourself 2017”

Abstract

Objective: Currently, childhood obesity is a worldwide growing public health problem. Three of the major factors that contribute to this pandemic are unhealthy eating habits/sedentary, the lack of information on nutrition value of food, and the availability of caloric dense food with poor nutritional content. In this context, health promotion through nutritional education for school-age children is of major relevance. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of an education-based intervention on food labeling in children of five different schools in the municipality of Lisbon.

Material and methods: This was a community trial. The target population was children enrolled at the 4th grade of elementary school in the 2016/2017 of five schools in the municipality of Lisbon, covered by the project “Eat slowly and well, and move yourself”. This is a 4 years public health project leaded by Direção Geral da Saúde, intended to monitor childhood obesity and to promote healthy habits in school aged children in articulation with public Schools and Health Centers. The interventions based in educational materials were directed to 4th grade children and performed and presented by a nutritionist. In 2017 the core theme of educational sessions was food labeling and nutritional value of packaged foods. Materials included PowerPoint presentations and sample food labels to touch and read. Knowledge was assessed before and after nutritional education sessions through a 15 multiple-choice test designed for the project. The final 6 questions were about two yogurt labels presented.

Results: 188 children of the 4th grade of 5 schools in Lisbon were enrolled. After intervention, it was observed knowledge improvement mainly on the following categories of questions: definition of a food label, importance of food labels, habit of reading labels, and understanding of label information (Figure 1). Regarding the labels presented, a higher percentage of correct answers was observed for all schools after intervention.

Conclusions: It was possible to conclude that educational-based interventions in community nutrition are fundamental for the acquisition of skills and knowledge, promoting healthy habits and lifestyles. Thus, the figure of the School Nutritionist can play an important role in supporting schools and families in the task of nutritional education of the youngest.

Figure 1. Effect of educational-based intervention on food label knowledge and behaviour. Answers with major improvement are presented.