Nutrition-education research: an interdisciplinary evaluation and review

An interdisciplinary evaluation approach was developed to analyze and compare school nutrition education programs systematically. Theoretical models from education, preventive medicine, health education and statistical evaluation were applied to 22 studies published between 1968 and 1978 to judge program impact on nutrition knowledge, behavior, and attitudes. Six studies reported XS and SDs for control and experimental groups. Effect sizes, showing average treatment effect in standard deviation units, were calculated for those six studies. It can be concluded that the more interdisciplinary criteria a study fulfills, the more likely it is to influence knowledge, behavior, and attitudes.