Nutrition-Education Research: An Interdisciplinary Evaluation and Review

Abstract

An interdisciplinary evaluation approach was developed to analyze and compare school nutrition education programs systematically. Theore tical models from education, preventive medicine, health education and statistical evaluation were applied to 22 studies published between 1968 and 1978 to judge program impact on nutrition knowledge, behavior, and attitudes. Six studies reported XS and SDs for control and experimental groups. Effect sizes, showing average treatment effect in standard devia tion units, were calculated for those six studies. It can be concluded that the more interdisciplinary criteria a study fulfills, the more likely it is to in fluence knowledge, behavior, and attitudes.