Using the food records to follow adolescents’ eating behaviour during the implementation of the educational programme ‘Planning Health in School’

Abstract

Children and adolescents learn about healthy eating habits at school and they know what these healthy concepts are but reality shows they do not take on action the practice based on these concepts (Ransley et al., 2010; Valente, Padez, Mourao, Rosado, & Moreira, 2010(Valente, Padez, Mourao, Rosado, & Moreira, 2010). Largely because of this, there is an exponential increase of prevalence of overweight/obesity in children and young people (Lobstein, Baur, & Uauy, 2004; Valente et al., 2010). In order to contribute for changing this current pattern, an educational programme called “Planning Health in School” (PHS) was designed, implemented and evaluated for the expected positive changes on eating behaviours among adolescents. This PHS programme integrated healthy eating and active living issues with adolescents’ participation and their motivation for healthier behaviours. The PHS program was implemented during a complete academic year with grade 6 adolescents of 10 to 14 years old. It started with an initial diagnosis and followed with the implementation of a set of eight learning activities and the monitoring of the process with several assessment tools. To evaluate the dietary evolution among adolescents, a 3-day food records tool was used to assess their daily food intake. In this study we describe the methodological approach used with the food records (FRs) and the achieved adherence among a group of adolescents during the implementation of the PHS program.