The Effect of Nutrition Education on Dietary Habits of Fifth‐Graders

Two fifth-grade classes of 45 students, a majority in the Mexican-American culture, participated in the five month study. One group was taught a series of eight nutrition education units emphasizing weight control while the other group received no nutrition instruction. Pretests and posttests were given to each group and a 24-hour dietary recall was obtained. Findings from the written pretest and posttest showed that the group receiving nutrition instruction learned a significantly (p less than .01) greater number of nutrition concepts than the control group. Dietary intakes revealed that the diets of the experimental group did not improve after nutrition instruction. A majority of postdietary intakes met less than 50% of the RDA.