The Status, Importance and Performance of the School Obesity Education in Elementary School

Heo, Yoon Young; Hwang, Jinah

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the status of the nutritional education program on educational perception, facilities, contents and systems, which were focused on the school obesity education in the elementary school. A five point Likert scale was used to evaluate the importance and performance of each item in four sections of the survey and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA; gap between importance and performance) matrix analysis was applied to determine improvement priority. The findings from IPA matrix analysis are in the following. The items of the sections to be improved intensively are recognition of parents and in-charge teacher, availability of the education place, preparation of consulting room, preparation of various teaching media, interest of an education program, meal adjustment of overweight children, combination with education and exercise, education for psychological factors, development of scientific and systematic education program and reduction of meal service duty for education. Accordingly, the IPA matrix analysis suggested that an intensive improvement area should be excessively concentrated on for better performance. The regional gap between importance and performance showed significant difference for textbook and diet of overweight children in Kyunggi-Do. There were significant differences for the government perception, dietary habits and food-life education, fast-food education, education for breakfast importance, and education of school meal indication system and method to read food nutrition indication in Chollabuk-Do. As for the age gap between importance and performance, the twenties showed significantly bigger gaps in perception of school dietitians and linking between school meals and diet education. Therefore, more proactive efforts for the education for obesity prevention are necessary to prevent childhood obesity in elementary school and to help children to possess better health throughout their entire lives.