Garden Based Nutrition Education: an experimental approach for learning nutrition education to change adolescent’s eating preferences

This paper studies the impact of garden based nutrition education as a method to teach nutrition education to change food preferences in adolescents aged 10-14 years. This intervention is motivated by the need to change junk food preferences in adolescents in order for them to develop a habit of healthy eating as an adult. The paper uses an intervention approach that lasted for 6 weeks and draws its sample from two schools in the Urban areas of Chennai. 249 students participated from PSBB school that caters to students from a lower-middle income families. 112 students participated from TSA school that caters to students from upper middle income families. However, the intervention took place only in PSBB and the observations made from TSA were mainly to compare the demographics, knowledge level and parent-child relationships between the different households. The results show that garden based nutrition education has led to students decrease their preference for junk food during the time of intervention by 8%. The concept mapping and essays show that students have understood almost all the topics covered in the sessions starting from impact of urbanisation, increasing consumerism, junk food consumption to the implications on health and families affordability to healthy and nutritious food. The results also show that knowledge on food pyramid significantly increases individuals preference for fruits and vegetables by 0.04 percentage points, if they are taking independent decisions. But knowledge on gardening significantly decreases their preference for fruits and vegetables. Also adolescents have a positive influence from social media advertisements as they increase preference for fruits and vegetables significantly by 0.34 percentage points. There is also difference in knowledge and parent-child relationship levels between PSBB and TSA school. Students from TSA showed more awareness in topics concerning nutrition and gardening. Parent involvement in child’s eating decisions was however similar.