2021, Vol. 3, Issue 1, Part A

author(s)
Dr. S Tamilselvi, J Suvetha and R Sugantha

abstract
The children of today and will be the adult of tomorrow, central to this vision of the future, focusing on today’s children and educating them to change their behaviour towards wealthy eating pattern is necessary. Nutritional problem is one of the major health problem faced by billions of children of all age groups. Preventive approach to maintain good health with specific education can be greater benefit for the children to prevent mental and physical ailments. The present study aim to create awareness among school children regarding health hazards of junk foods. Objectives of the study to assess the level of knowledge on health hazards of junk food among school children before planned instructional module (pre-test), to assess the level of knowledge on health hazards of junk food among school children after planned instructional module (post-test), to determine the effectiveness of planned instructional module among school children, to find the association between selected demographic variables and the level of knowledge among school children. The study was conducted in government high school at Erayamangalam village in thiruvallur district. About 30 students were selected by randomized method. The instruments used for data collection are demographic variable and structured questionnaire method to assess the knowledge regarding health hazards of junk foods. The pre-test mean score of knowledge score was 3.50 with standard deviation 2.36 and the post-test mean score of knowledge was 21.77 with standard deviation 2.01. The calculated paired ‘t’ test value of t = 29.487 was found to be statistically highly significant at P<0.001 level. This clearly infers that planned instructional module regarding knowledge administered to school children resulted in a significant improvement in the level of knowledge about hazards of junk foods among school children.