الفهرس 
Primary school children characteristicsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
P
rimary school age is the active growing phase of childhood. Primary school age is a dynamic period of physical growth as well as of mental development of the child. Research indicates that health problems due to miserable nutritional status in primary school-age children are among the most common causes of low school enrolment, high absenteeism, early dropout and unsatisfactory classroom performance.
Aim of the study:
The aim of this study was to:
Evaluate the effect of nutritional habits on growth of primary school children through:
1- Assessing parents` knowledge toward appropriate diet for their school children.
2- Assessing the parental nutritional habits of primary school children.
3- Assessing the nutritional habits of primary school children.
4- Assessing nutritional habits affecting growth of school children.
5- Assess health status of school children.
Research Questions:
1- Are there nutritional habits affecting growth of school children?
2- Are parents having knowledge toward appropriate nutrition for their school children?
Methodology:
Research design:
A descriptive design was used in this study.
Setting
This study was conducted in governmental and non-governmental primary schools in Bani Mazar city (suburban city) El-Minya governorate in four primary schools include two government schools which there name are Abna El Sawra 1,Bani mazar official distinguished languages and two private schools which there name are El-Taqwa private Islamic and EL-Zahra primary language where they are the highest density schools of students boys and girls, Arabic and languages.
Subjects
A convenient sample was taking of the 6th grade students included 300 students in places that mentioned in the previous after agreeing to participate
Tools of data collection
Two tools were used for data collection:
• First tool:- An Interview Questionnaire:
It was designed by the researcher and will be written in Arabic language children and their parents level. It consists of four parts.
A. Socio-demographic questionnaire: socio-demographic data which includes age, sex, parents; education level and socioeconomic status of them... etc.
B. Parental knowledge about nutrition: such as quantity and quality of nutrition, components, resources, types... etc.
C. Dietary habits of parents and their school children: such as frequency of meals, quality, amount, snacks food between each meal … etc.
• Second tool:- Medical record analysis:
To assess physical assessment for primary school children.
Results
The main study findings can be summarized as follows:
The study included 300 children, with a mean age of 11.84 ±.38. More than half of studied children (56.7%) were females. The majority of them live in Urban 92%.
All students were in six grades divided to Governmental school (56.7%), and Nongovernmental school (43.3%). Majority of student (98 %) had pocking money and receiving it daily.
More than quarter of children spent their pocket money in buying sweets and slightly more than one fourth 27.2% out of them respectively spent it in buying food.
Three quarters (74%) of parent had satisfactory knowledge regarding proper nutrition for their primary school children, more than two third had satisfactory knowledge regarding basic knowledge and more than half (56%) had satisfactory knowledge regarding the importance of proper food.
Most of the studied parent (71%) of primary school children had unhealthy eating pattern and only 29% of them had healthy eating pattern.
Most of the studied primary school children (63 %) had unhealthy food pattern and behavior. Also more than one third (37%) of them had healthy food pattern and behavior.
More than half of the studied primary school children (53.7%) were underweight, 30% was normal weight, 13% were overweight and 3.3% of them were obese.
there is no statistically significant relation between unsatisfactory total parent’s knowledge and their habits, their children habits and Body Mass Index (BMI) at p-value >0.05.
There is statistically significant relation between unhealthy Children’s nutritional habits and their demographic data about gender at p-value <0.05.
There is high statistically significant relation between unhealthy Children’s nutritional habits and their Body Mass Index (BMI) at p-value <0.05.
There is high statistically significant relation between unhealthy Parent’s nutritional habits and their children Body Mass Index (BMI) and there is statistically significant relation between unhealthy Parent’s nutritional habits and their unhealthy children’s habits at p-value <0.05.
Conclusion
On light of the current study results and research questions, it can be concluded that, near three quarters of parent had satisfactory knowledge regarding appropriate nutrition for their primary school children. Also near to three quarter of the study parent of primary school children had unhealthy nutritional habits. About two third of the studied primary school children had unhealthy food habits. There is high statistically significant relation between unhealthy Parent’s nutritional habits and their children Body Mass Index (BMI) and there is statistically significant relation between unhealthy Parent’s nutritional habits and their unhealthy children’s habits. from all of the above the parents and children nutritional habits had effect on growth of primary school children which achieve with the aim of the study.
The following recommendations were inferred from the study:
More hours should be devoted to nutrition and nutritional habits education and the programs should run throughout the course of elementary school education.
Nutrition educational programs should become a national concern aiming at improving nutritional habits of school aged children.
Further research is needed to determine with more precision and large sample for generalization of result.