Changes in the understanding and behavior of elementary school children due to nutrition education

Nutrition education is a teaching method that provides knowledge about the nutrients in food and their fact. Nutrition education is necessary for school children who are prone to having uncontrolled behaviors especially for freely buying snack during school break. There was no supervision from the school and street vendor were free to sell their food product. Meanwhile, the main cause of obesity in kids were happen because they are happy to buy their own food and exceeds the limit of calorie needs. Education programs that is applied to create a healthy lifestyle is to provide nutrition education materials directly. Balanced nutrition is an important element to ensure optimal growth. Factors that impair the nutritional status of elementary school-aged children are picky eating behavior and tendency to eat only their favorite foods. Children often choose unhealthy food, especially when parents do not explain basic nutrition concept to them. The purpose of this research was to provide information about the effect of nutrition education on knowledge and understanding of food consumption behavior of fifth grade students at the Integrated Islamic Elementary School (IIES). The number of respondents in this research were 64 respondents who were divided into 2 groups, namely, the education group and the non-education group. The education group and non-education group each consisted of 32 respondents. The research process began with the initial data collection stage in the form of a pretest. After that, nutrition education was provided four times. Two months later, the final data were collected by conducting a posttest. The results showed that the provision of nutrition education to fifth grade students at IIES added insight and knowledge of good consumption patterns. Nutrition education influenced attitudes and consumption patterns to reduce junk food consumption. Many factors can cause changes in eating behavior in school children.