[BeKi--an initiative for nutrition education in children: program description and evaluation]

The State Initiative Be KI is carried out statewide by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry for Nutrition/Food and Rural Area since 1980. Be KI addresses all target groups involved in the upbringing and education of children from age 6 months up to the end of the 6th grade and provides factual, validated, and independent information on child nutrition and nutrition education. Recently a comprehensive evaluation was carried out to assess the public health impact. Program, design and results of the evaluation are presented.

According to the RE-AIM Model for health promotion programs the evaluation assesses the public health impact in regard of individual and institutional reach, efficacy, adoption, implementation, and maintenance by various methods (e. g. written surveys and interviews with experts of child nutrition, in day care facilities and primary schools supplemented by internal data of the Ministry).

Be KI represents the nutrition education program for children in the German language area with the longest uninterrupted operation span. The number of assignments of the child nutrition experts has been increasing ever since Be KI's official inception in 1980. During the school year 2004/2005 the experts carried out 6090 assignments, predominantly in primary schools which accounted for 60% of the assignments. About a third of schools know Be KI. The majority of kindergarten and school teachers who know the experts of child nutrition or the compilation use these offers. Many teachers use Be KI-components without knowing that they belong to Be KI. As a result of Be KI some of the teachers noticed short-time changes: pupils eat healthier break-time snacks and change their attitude towards a more balanced diet. Concerning the frequency of nutrition education and teachers attitude there are hardly any differences between institutions with Be KI and without Be KI.

Be KI meets the main requirements of effective nutrition education programs for children: it is creative, engaging, inexpensive an widely dissiminated. Contents and methods of the provided materials correspond to the development level of the target groups. But communication and networking with educational institutions as well as public relations should be intensified and teachers in day care facilities and school teachers should be motivated to work with the Be KI-materials on their own (empowerment). Room for improvement exists in regard of a permanent straightforward evaluation system and a more pronounced orientation of the prevention program towards the social environment would be helpful.