The effect of a nutrition education intervention on knowledge, attitude, and intake of foods high in fats in women.

BACKGROUND

Given that many Iranian were interested in the consumption of foods that are high in fats, the present study was done to determine the effect of a nutrition education intervention on knowledge, attitude, and intake of foods high in fat among a sample of women in Tehran.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this quasi-experimental study, 92 female referrals to the health houses affiliated to Tehran municipal were selected and assigned to either intervention ( = 46) or control ( = 46) groups. Information (data) regarding women's knowledge, attitude, and practice in terms of foods rich in fat intake was collected by three questionnaires. Then, a nutrition education intervention included four 40-60 min training sessions over 4 weeks was designed and conducted to the study participants in the intervention group. Two groups were followed up 2 months after the intervention. Finally, all data were analyzed by using the independent-samples -tests, Student's paired-samples -test, and Pearson correlation analysis on the R software (version 6.3.2).

RESULTS

The results showed that there were significant reductions in a positive attitude towards food with high fat content and intake of these foods in the intervention group compared with the control group after the intervention ( < 0.001). Furthermore, following the intervention, the intervention group reported a significant increase in dietary fat nutrition knowledge than the control group ( < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

Developing nutrition education interventions is an effective strategy for reducing the consumption of foods rich in fat in Iranian women.