A STUDY TO ASSESS KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSED PRACTICES REGARDING CONSUMPTION OF JUNK FOOD AMONG SCHOOL GOING CHILDREN

Phougat Jyoti; Kaur Manpreet

Volume : IX, Issue : III, March - 2020

A STUDY TO ASSESS KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSED PRACTICES REGARDING CONSUMPTION OF JUNK FOOD AMONG SCHOOL GOING CHILDREN

Phougat Jyoti, Kaur Manpreet

Abstract :

Background: Present children are the investments of community in the future. Accurate nutrition in child�s life will be the most important factor in prep� health, growth and development of children in their future. Growth rate is high in primary years of life and lack of necessary knowledge about nutrition is influencing factors for malnutrition incidence in children. Now days, changing dietary patterns in recent decades, nutritious snacks are substituted by junk food. Many children like to eat junk food but they do not know about harmful effects of junk food on their health. Objective: To assess the knowledge and expressed practices regarding consumption of junk food among school going children. Methods: A non–experimental descriptive study was conducted on 200 school going children, selected by convenient sampling technique Structured Knowledge Questionnaire and Structured Practice Checklist were used to collect the data. Result: study shows that more than half of the school going children were (55%) having good very good knowledge and (5%) were having below average knowledge. Only (30.5%) children were following healthy practices. The mean of knowledge score is higher (22.62%) than mean score of expressed practices (18.64). Conclusion: In the nutshell, present study reveals that the half of the school going children had very good knowledge even one third of them having unhealthy expressed practices regarding consumptions of junk food