HELP! Promoting healthy eating choices for tomorrow's primary schools

Abstract

This study has been carried out in order to explore the educators' and parents' knowledge of nutrition and their role in promoting healthy eating choices for children. Preliminary search for literature focused on the need for nutrition education in both the school and the home to empower children to make healthy choices for life. Reference is made to a model of health behaviour learning and to strategies adopted by other countries to promote a healthy lifestyle. The research is multi-method in design. Data was collected through interviews with Year 3 teachers and questionnaires for parents of Year 3 pupils in church, independent and state schools from all colleges across Malta and Gozo. Both the interviews and the questionnaires covered issues of eating choices. The questionnaires covered food choices adopted by parents when preparing meals for their children and the interviews focused on the teachers' perceptions of their role as promoters of nutrition education. Finally, whilst acknowledging the limitations of the study, the findings tentatively show that the influence of the Healthy Eating Lifestyle Plan issued by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Employment in 2007 on school policies and teachers' and parents' promotion of healthier eating is minimal, thus the need to formulate a policy to help promote healthy eating habits .