Impact of nutrition education on nutrition knowledge of nursery educators and dietary behavior of children in Lebanese nurseries

ABSTRACT

During infancy, children spend most of their time in child care. The aim of our study is to evaluate the nutritional knowledge level of educators and to show that nutritional education initiated in the preschool age [0 to 3 years] helps to improve children's eating habits. For this purpose, a pilot study was conducted between July 15, 2015 and October 15, 2015, covering one nursery and five educators, in which interventions have allowed educators to learn the basics of child nutrition and strategies to improve eating behaviors of children. After analyzing the results, desirable changes in eating habits of the children were noticeable, for instance an 80Percent improvement in fruit consumption and 55Percent in vegetable consumption; similarly there was a 21Percent increase in the knowledge of educators. However, despite this nutritional intervention, 80Percent of children persist to prefer sweets and treats. Thus continuous nutrition education might be the solution to this problem: