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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
In order to promote healthier eating habits and consequently lower obesity levels, it is believed that it is
important for children to have knowledge of diet and nutrition. Using nutrition education as an intervention strategy
may provide improvements in children's nutritional knowledge, attitudes, and eating behaviors. Objectives: Increase
nutritional knowledge about healthy eating and Portuguese food wheel in children aged 3-6 years. Methodology: As
part of Community Dietetic subject, integrated on 3rd year of Dietetics and Nutrition degree, each student group should
conduct a community intervention for better nutrition. Our group developed the Growing Healthy is Fun! to 3-6 years
old children, at the Kindergarten of Obra Kolping. Several funny activities were planned together by all stakeholders,
students, teacher and kindergarten educator, and carried out by the students, in order to instill knowledge about healthy
eating and Portuguese food wheel, leading to best eating practices and adequate nutritional status. Structured interviews
were conducted with the children pre and post the intervention for all children that parents or guardian delivered a
written informed consent. Results: At pre intervention, the percentages of children that considered the example food as
healthy food are: 100% for apple, beans, carrots and unflavored milk, 57.1% for fish, 28.6% for chocolate and cake. At
post intervention the results are: 100% for apple, beans, carrots and unflavored milk, 85,7% for fish, and 0% for
chocolate, cake and pizza. About Portuguese food wheel knowledge, at pre intervention, all children indicated
cauliflower and banana, 71.4% considered olive oil and plain milk, 42.9% considered cake, and 28.7% considered egg
and candy as foods belonging to the wheel. In post intervention, 100% of children considered egg, olive oil, cauliflower
and bananas as food belonging to the wheel and 71.4% of them considered milk as belonging to the food wheel.
Chocolate, candies, hamburger and cake were not classified as part of the food wheel. The gains in nutritional knowledge
are represented in fig. 1. Discussion: With the intervention, it was possible to transmit to the children information about
healthy eating and the results showed that the activity was successful. It seems to be important to aggregate knowledge
from various stakeholders: the kindergarten educator has best understands of children and most appropriate pedagogical
techniques, the subject's teacher who brings technical expertise and can correct theoretical concepts, and the students
who learn by doing and bring new and different ideas of activities to be applied to in children. In the course of the
intervention, we found as limitation the lack of parental response from some questionnaires. In this sense it seems
relevant to include this stakeholder as part of next activities planning. Conclusion: This intervention allowed the
children to increase knowledge about the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods, as well as those belonging to
a Portuguese food wheel.
Description
Keywords
Healthier eating habits Obesity Children
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Silva, Carolina; Ribeiro, Maria C.; Almeida-de-Souza, Juliana; Lopes, Sandra (2020). Growing healthy is fun! A co-creation nutrition intervention to children aged 3-6 years. In In2CoP 2020 - Conferência Internacional em Processos de Cocriação no Ensino Superior 2020: livro de resumos. Bragança: Instituto Politécnico. ISBN 978-972-745-275-0
Publisher
Instituto Politécnico de Bragança