Developing a school-based nutrition education programme to transform the nutritional behaviours of basic-level schoolchildren: a case from participatory action research in Nepal

ABSTRACT

Nutrition education at school can contribute to developing healthy nutritional behaviours in schoolchildren. This paper critically reflects on how participatory action research (PAR) empowered university researchers and a school community to co-develop a school-based nutrition education programme (SBNEP) that promotes healthy nutritional behaviours in basic-level schoolchildren (Grades 1–8). This study followed PAR as the methodological approach, where university researchers collaborated with the school stakeholders, also called ‘co-researchers’, to co-develop a SBNEP. This study was conducted in a public school located in the Chitwan district of Nepal from June 2018 to August 2022. The study involved basic-level schoolteachers, fourth to eighth-grade students and their parents/guardians, school leaders, and the PAR committee members as the co-researchers. The study used in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, informal talks, and bridging-the-gap workshop methods. The interpretive phenomenological method was used to explain the meaning of the data. The findings of the study reflect that exploring the needs for good nutritional behaviours, prioritising them, and co-designing the SBNEP utilising the PAR methodology is a time-consuming project since it demands prolonged fieldwork, self-motivation, commitment, action with critical reflection (praxis), dialogic relation, and negotiation skills from both researchers and co-researchers. The study recommends that basic-level schoolteachers and researchers consider applying SBNEP using a participatory framework for transformational change in students’ nutritional behaviours.

KEYWORDS:

• School-based nutrition education programme (SBNEP)
• Nutritional behaviour
• Participatory action research (PAR)
• Intervention programme
• Nepal

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to credit all the school stakeholders who are the co-researchers of this study for their meaningful engagement throughout the study. We also thank the NORHED Rupantaran project for offering research grants to undertake this study. The authors also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their worthy comments to make this paper publishable.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

YRU, as a lead researcher, developed, edited and finalised the manuscript. SB, BD, and BCL provided scholarly guidance and critical inputs to make this paper publishable. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript for publication and authorship.

Ethical approval

The research protocol for the study was approved by the Faculty of Education, TU. Further, the ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Nepal Health Research Council [NHRC]: 733/2018.

Notes

1. Home - Rupantaran; http://kusoed.edu.np/transform/

2. A junction of informal talks among the community people, where they gossip with a cup of tea, which is very common in Nepal mostly in the countryside.

3. It is a socio-cultural festival where community people exhibit their local foods, goods, and animals, followed by folk songs, costumes, and cultural dance.

Additional information

Funding

The study received funding from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation through the NORHED portfolio of projects, agreement number [QZA0483, NPL-16/0014].