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Abstract
Nutrition is fundamental to health promotion and maintenance. A good nutritional status during adolescence not only contributes to better health during this stage of life, and providing increased capacity to perform daily activities but also sets the basis for better health throughout the life course and therefore contributes to a longer life with a better quality. Adolescents undergo dramatic physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes in a relatively short period of time. The phenomenal growth that occurs during adolescence is second only to that in the first year of life, and it increases the body’s demand for energy and nutrients. The consumption of food to match this demand is impacted by numerous psychosocial factors such as newly acquired feelings of independence, peer acceptance, search for self-identity, busy lifestyle, concern for appearance, \~’O.\\’3.\)ility of food, and economic status. Adolescents have been found to have the highest prevalence, of unsatisfactory nutritional status. For a variety of reasons, adolescents may .thange from regular meals prepared at home to irregular meals, skipped meals, nutrition poor snack and fast food meals. The aim of the present study was to study the food consumption Uerns among secondary school students in Alexandria. Moreover, the ldy aimed to construct, implement and assess the impact of an intervention utrition-educational program on a group of students in need. In order to accomplish the aim, this study was conducted in two ases during the scholastic years of 2002 / 2003 and 2003 / 2004. The dy was conducted in the secondary schools of the seven educational zones of Alexandria Governorate. The study population was the secondary school !!udents (boys and girls) enrolled in the first grade in both governmental and ~rivate schools. The first phase was the cross-sectional approach to study the food wnsumption patterns among secondary school students. Four governmental IIld private schools were selected randomly from each zone (for boys and ~Is), then a class of first grade was selected from each school randomly. The ootal sample size of all students in 25 classes selected was 946 students; 504 ~!s and 442 boys. For the execution of this phase a self administered ~estionnaire was filled by each student in the presence of the researcher to wllect data about personal and socio-demographic characteristics, physical ictivity patterns, data about dietary patterns, and knowledge of the students iDout balanced diet and sound nutrition. Anthropometric measurements in ilieforrn of weight and height were taken. The dietary intake of the students . . was detennined using a 24-hour diet recall method. After the completion of ~ta collection of this phase, data was fed into the computer for tabulation md analysis and accordingly the group of low knowledge and practice of oodents was identified (226). The second phase was a quasi-experimental, non equivalent control ’-lfOuP design used to implement and evaluate an intervention of a nutritional ~cational program on a group of students (214 out of 226) having poor lowledge and practice. Half of the students were selected for the ’~~Nention group who received the health education program and another ill for the control group who did not receive such program. The total ~ber of students of the intervention group reached 104 from five schools Id I I 0 students from six schools for the control group. Evaluation of the fectiveness of the developed nutrition educational program was done rough one-month later evaluation. A comparison between pre and post ~t:S was uone 1:0 Hna out the students level of knowledge and practices by questioning them regarding the program contents.