A Study On Nutritional Literacy And Eating Behaviors Of The Pupils From Six Cities In China

BackgroundChildhood was the key period of the growth,and adequate nutrition not only was the material basis for development of their intelligence and physique,but also was related to the health of whole life.At the same time,the childhood formed a key period of eating behavior and way of life.And the healthy diet and lifestyle would make them a lifelong benefit.Therefore,strengthening children's diet health education and promoting them to develop good eating behaviors and lifestyle were necessary.ObjectiveUnderstanding the pupils' nutritional literacy,food intake frequency and dietary behavior from six cities including Beijing,Guangzhou,Nanjing,Chongqing,Jinan,Harbin.Providing a scientific basis for related departments to make policies and plans to improve the health of students.MethodsThis research adopted the method of multistage stratified random cluster sampling.First of all,randomly selecting two urban areas and two suburban areas from Beijing,Guangzhou,Nanjing,Chongqing,Jinan and Harbin.Then randomly selecting three primary schools from each area in every city,and then randomly selecting 2 classes in grade four and grade five from each school.All selected students in the class as a survey object to participate in the survey.Through the questionnaire survey,the information of nutritional literacy,the behaviors of food intake,breakfast,snack,Chinese fast food,western fast food,beverages from the students were collected.Questionnaires contained "student dietary intake questionnaire" and "student nutritional knowledge,attitude,behavior questionnaire",unified self-fill way to fill.ResultsIn this survey,a total of 12220 questionnaires were issued.After the unqualified questionnaires were removed,the effective questionnaires were 12197 and questionnaire effective rate was 99.8%.The students who had awareness of foods containing grains,foods containing protein,foods containing calcium were more than 60%,and for foods containing iron only less than half the number.The students had a strong sense of requirement for nutritional knowledge,especially from the way of family,textbooks and campus propaganda to get knowledge.Whether being interested in nutritional knowledge,or realizing the importance of diet,breakfast and nutrition knowledge to health,and even being willing to change the eating behavior,the proportions of students were as high as 90%or more.In terms of food intake frequency,12%and 13%of the students almost didn't eat meat and eggs.The intake frequencies of fish,legumes,bacteria,algae were generally low.But intake frequencies of milk,fresh fruits and vegetables had reached a higher level,and dairy drink almost every day was more than 50%.Nutrition supplements were not common but also had gradually become popular.1.3%of the studengts still didn't eat breakfast,and the proportion of eating breakfast only 1-2 times a week was 3.2%,eating almost every day was 88.5%.31.8%of the children's breakfast nutrition quality was poor,and the intake proportion of protein and fruits and vegetables were lower than 50%,the dairy intake was less than 70%.Home was the main place to consume snacks,and consumption proportion was as high as 96.4%.The snacks most often to eat at home and school were fruits,vegetables,dairy and grains,while in other places were cereals,candies and drinks.The cause of the preferred snacks was delicious.The proportion of consuming Chinese and Western fast food more than 5 times per week were about 10.3%and 4.5%,consuming those 1-2 times a week were 36.9%and 41.4%.First reason for consumption of the fast food was delicious.The students having the awareness of the unreasonable food types of Chinese and Western fast food were only 1.9%and 2.7%,having the awareness of the unreasonable nutrition value of were 5.2%and 15.3%,having the awareness of unreasonable heat content were 8.5%and 6.4%.The proportion of students consuming beverages at home was as high as 92.5%,in other places was 70.7%,at school was 51.4%.The proportion of girls' beverage consumption was higher than boys',the fifth grade students was higher than the fourth grade students.The proportion of pure milk consumption was the highest,but the proportion of boys in the selection of carbonated beverages was much higher than that of girls,and the ranking of carbonated beverages at home,in schools and elsewhere in the most frequently consumed beverages was increasing.The preferred reason to choose a drink is tasty.Through this study,the proportion of good overall diet behavior was 88.5%,of health overall diet behavior was 6.0%,and still 5.5%of the overall diet behavior was poor.ConclusionStudents' proportion of getting nutrition knowledge and being willing to change unhealthy eating habits were high.The students' intake frequencies of milk,fresh fruits and vegetables all had reached a higher level,but the intake frequencies of rest food were in general.There was still a small number of children did not eat breakfast,and protein and vegetables including in breakfast were in a low level.Poor quality of breakfast had a high ratio.Snacks' and beverages' consumption were widespread,and delicious and tasty were the preferred reason.The number of students realized that the fast food was unreasonable was less,and there were a small number of children even ate fast food more than 5 times a week.The students who had healthy eating behavior were majority,but poor was still existing,and so further publicity and education to strengthen the health and eating behavior were necessary.