A Quasi Experimental Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Program on Knowledge Regarding Health Hazards of Junk Foods among School Children at Selected School, Chennai

Title: Effectiveness of structured teaching program on knowledge regarding health hazards of junk food among school children at selected school, Chennai.

Introduction: Junk food is slang word used for the food which is high in calories, fat, salt but low in nutritive value. Junk food trend is vigorously increasing among children. Today's school children learned that fast foods are easily available and affordable. But the health hazards considerably outweigh those benefits. Consumption of junk food is associated with many diseases like hypertension, heart disease, cancer, obesity, etc. This can be prevented by adopting healthy diet pattern. Teaching program regarding hazards of junk food can enhance knowledge of school children and motivate them to adopt healthy diet and lifestyle.

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching program on knowledge regarding health hazards of junk food among school children at selected school, Chennai. Method: A quasi experimental one group pretest posttest design was adopted for this study .100 school children, who met the inclusion criteria were selected by using probability simple random sampling technique (Lottery method) from Victoria nursery and primary school at Chennai. Chi square test was used to see the association between pretest knowledge and demographic variables and paired 't' test was used to evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching program.

Result: In pretest out of 100 school children, 83 (83%) children had inadequate knowledge and 17(17%) had moderately adequate knowledge. In posttest 22(22%) had moderately adequate knowledge and 78 (78%) had adequate knowledge. The't' value 30.48 was compared with tabulated table value at the level of P < 0.05 was significant . It has been revealed that the structured teaching program on health hazards of junk foods among school children was effective. There was no significant association between pretest knowledge and selected demographic variables.

Conclusion: The finding of the study concluded that the structured teaching program was effective to improve the knowledge regarding health hazards of junk foods among school children.