What is Nutrition Education
Nutrition Education is any combination of educational strategies, accompanied by environmental supports, designed to facilitate voluntary adoption of food choices and other food- and nutrition-related behaviors conducive to health and well-being. Nutrition education is delivered through multiple venues and involves activities at the individual, community, and policy levels.
Educational BenefitsHousehold food security is a prerequisite for people to have an adequate and balanced food intake. However, to attain good health and nutritional status, people also need sufficient knowledge and skills to grow, purchase, process, prepare, eat and feed to their families a variety of foods, in the right quantities and combinations. This requires a basic knowledge of what constitutes a nutritious diet and how people can best meet their nutritional needs from available resources. Undesirable food habits and nutrition-related practices, which are often based on insufficient knowledge, traditions and taboos or poor understanding of the relationship between diet and health, can adversely affect nutritional status. However, people can adopt healthier diets and improve their nutritional well-being by changing their food and nutrition attitudes, knowledge and practices, if sufficient motivation is provided to do so.
Nutrition Education in Schools
Schools provide a special medium for nutrition education and for intervention to improve children's health and nutritional status. The basic aim is to help children acquire nutrition knowledge and to develop and encourage desirable eating habits and food choices. Children can also help change the eating habits of their families by demanding desirable food, and when they themselves become parents in the future, they can impart good dietary habits to their children. Therefore, a common maxim about how to bring about a real change in dietary habits is "Go to School".
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