Nutrition Knowledge, Attitudes And Practices Of Children From Isinya And Nkoile Primary Schools In Kajiado District, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Nutrition Education is the process by which people gain knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary for developing appropriate dietary habits. Schools, families and communities are the main social contexts in which lifestyles are developed. They are excellent settings for promoting nutrition knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP). In Kenya, there is scarcity of information on nutrition knowledge of primary school children. In addition, there is paucity of data on how nutrition knowledge influences their nutrition practices. The purpose of this study was to establish primary school pupil‟s nutrition knowledge, nutrition- related attitudes and practices in Kajiado District, Kenya. In addition, the study aimed at establishing the relationship between nutrition practice and nutrition knowledge and nutrition-related attitudes children. The study adopted a cross sectional analytical study design. A total of 280 randomly selected pupils from two schools; one urban and another rural were selected to participate in the study. To verify the self-reported practices, a 15% randomly selected sub-sample of the pupils were visited in their homes to observe nutrition-related practices. Focus group discussions were held with class 1-4 pupils, teachers and parents separately. The findings of the focus group discussion were used to explain the findings of the survey by providing in-depth information on nutritional knowledge, attitudes and practices. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 16. Correlations were used to establish the relationship between nutrition knowledge and practices such as washing hands as the data was continuous in nature. T-test was used to establish significant differences in knowledge and attitude mean scores. Chi-square was used to establish relationships between knowledge and attitude since the data was categorical. The overall nutrition knowledge was fair; the mean score was 13.8 out of a total of 20 questions. The nutrition knowledge of the children in Isinya Primary School was significantly higher (14.2 ± 2.69) than those of children from Nkoile Primary School (12.7 ±2.33) p=