Angoorani P, Keshavarz A, Sadrzadeh H, Rahimi. A,
Volume 65, Issue 14 (Vol 65, Supplement 2 2008)
Abstract
Background: Nutrition as an important factor in health can be effective in educational
success of students. Malnourished students have less concentration and attention. Lack of
breakfast consumption for a long period has negative effect in behavior and health. The
purpose of this study is to determine the effect of a nutritional teaching booklet about
breakfast on the knowledge of fourth grade girls at Tehran’s 6th educational and teaching
district.
Methods: This interventional study performed on 100 fourth grade girls from 10 schools in
Tehran city, randomly divided into two groups case who received booklet and control group.
Subject: At first a pretest of knowledge was done for all the students (case and control). The
case group was given the booklet to read by themselves. No teaching provided for the control
group. A knowledge posttest was performed two weeks later. Two types of questionnaires
(general and knowledge) were used to collect data. The following methods were used: chisquare
test for comparing case and control groups from the aspect of independent variables,
pair t- test for comparing the knowledge scores between case and control groups and one-way
ANOVA for assessment of independent variables effect on the mean difference of knowledge
in samples.
Results: The mean score of knowledge in the case group against the control increased 2.22
(p<0.001). The one-way ANOVA method showed that none of the independent variables
(family size, parents’ career and educational level, dinner breakfast sleeping and waking up
time, the person who prepares breakfast at home, breakfast consumption status in other
members of family) had significant effect on the mean of the knowledge scores’ difference.
Conclusions: The results of this study showed the nutritional teaching booklet about
breakfast caused an increase in the knowledge of this age group of girl students.
