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The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners

Overweight and obesity are growing concerns in adolescents, particularly in females in South Africa. The aim of this study was to evaluate the food and nutrition environment in terms of government policy programs, nutrition education provided, and foods sold at secondary schools in the Eastern Cape...

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Autores principales: Okeyo, Alice P., Seekoe, Eunice, de Villiers, Anniza, Faber, Mieke, Nel, Johanna H., Steyn, Nelia P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312062/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32517072
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114038
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author Okeyo, Alice P.
Seekoe, Eunice
de Villiers, Anniza
Faber, Mieke
Nel, Johanna H.
Steyn, Nelia P.
author_facet Okeyo, Alice P.
Seekoe, Eunice
de Villiers, Anniza
Faber, Mieke
Nel, Johanna H.
Steyn, Nelia P.
author_sort Okeyo, Alice P.
collection PubMed
description Overweight and obesity are growing concerns in adolescents, particularly in females in South Africa. The aim of this study was to evaluate the food and nutrition environment in terms of government policy programs, nutrition education provided, and foods sold at secondary schools in the Eastern Cape province. Sixteen schools and grade 8–12 learners (N = 1360) were randomly selected from three health districts comprising poor disadvantaged communities. Based on age and sex specific body mass index (BMI) cut-off values, 13.3% of males and 5.5% of females were underweight, while 9.9% of males and 36.1% of females were overweight or obese. The main food items purchased at school were unhealthy energy-dense items such as fried flour dough balls, chocolates, candies, and crisps/chips. Nutrition knowledge scores based on the South African food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) were poor for 52% to 23.4% learners in Grades 8 to 12, respectively. Female learners generally had significantly higher nutrition knowledge scores compared to their male counterparts (p = 0.016). Questions poorly answered by more than 60% of learners, included the number of fruit and vegetable portions required daily, food to eat when overweight, foods containing fiber, and importance of legumes. It was noted that the majority of teachers who taught nutrition had no formal nutrition training and their responses to knowledge questions were poor indicating that they were not familiar with the FBDGs, which are part of the curriculum. Nutrition assessment as part of the Integrated School Health Program was done on few learners. Overall however, despite some challenges the government national school meal program provided meals daily to 96% of learners. In general, the school food and nutrition environment was not conducive for promoting healthy eating.
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spelling pubmed-73120622020-06-25 The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners Okeyo, Alice P. Seekoe, Eunice de Villiers, Anniza Faber, Mieke Nel, Johanna H. Steyn, Nelia P. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Overweight and obesity are growing concerns in adolescents, particularly in females in South Africa. The aim of this study was to evaluate the food and nutrition environment in terms of government policy programs, nutrition education provided, and foods sold at secondary schools in the Eastern Cape province. Sixteen schools and grade 8–12 learners (N = 1360) were randomly selected from three health districts comprising poor disadvantaged communities. Based on age and sex specific body mass index (BMI) cut-off values, 13.3% of males and 5.5% of females were underweight, while 9.9% of males and 36.1% of females were overweight or obese. The main food items purchased at school were unhealthy energy-dense items such as fried flour dough balls, chocolates, candies, and crisps/chips. Nutrition knowledge scores based on the South African food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) were poor for 52% to 23.4% learners in Grades 8 to 12, respectively. Female learners generally had significantly higher nutrition knowledge scores compared to their male counterparts (p = 0.016). Questions poorly answered by more than 60% of learners, included the number of fruit and vegetable portions required daily, food to eat when overweight, foods containing fiber, and importance of legumes. It was noted that the majority of teachers who taught nutrition had no formal nutrition training and their responses to knowledge questions were poor indicating that they were not familiar with the FBDGs, which are part of the curriculum. Nutrition assessment as part of the Integrated School Health Program was done on few learners. Overall however, despite some challenges the government national school meal program provided meals daily to 96% of learners. In general, the school food and nutrition environment was not conducive for promoting healthy eating. MDPI 2020-06-05 2020-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7312062/ /pubmed/32517072 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114038 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Okeyo, Alice P.
Seekoe, Eunice
de Villiers, Anniza
Faber, Mieke
Nel, Johanna H.
Steyn, Nelia P.
The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners
title The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners
title_full The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners
title_fullStr The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners
title_full_unstemmed The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners
title_short The Food and Nutrition Environment at Secondary Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa as Reported by Learners
title_sort food and nutrition environment at secondary schools in the eastern cape, south africa as reported by learners
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312062/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32517072
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114038
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