The Effectiveness of Social Cognitive Theory-based Educational Intervention on School Children’s Breakfast Consumption

Introduction: Breakfast consumption has a lot of beneficial effects on nutritional status and cognitive activities of school-aged children's. This study aimed to examine the efficacy of social cognitive theory–based education on schoolchildren breakfast eating behaviors.

Methods: Two schools with similar socio-demographic characteristics were selected from 20 public primary schools of Ilam city (west of Iran) and randomly assigned as intervention or control school. Fifty school children from 3rd, 4th and 5th grades of each school participated in this study. Educational intervention was performed during 6-weeks and was focused on enhancing the self-efficacy, social support and self-regulation mediators to promote the school children’s breakfast consumption. Data were collected at baseline and 8-weeks after intervention using a 57-item questionnaire and a breakfast food diary and analyzed using Nutritionist IV food processor software and IBM SPSS statistics data editor.

Results: The findings showed that mean scores of all Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) constructs as well as breakfast eating behaviors in intervention group significantly increased at 8-weeks after intervention (p < 0.05). Also, there was a significant increase in mean score of knowledge in control group at 8 weeks follow-up (p < 0.05). Moreover, the results showed that mean scores of energy and all measured macro and micronutrients intakes significantly increased at follow-up in intervention group (p < 0.05). Also, there were significant increases in mean scores of energy, zinc, calcium and vitamin D intakes in control group at 8-weeks follow-up (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: The findings of the present study showed that social cognitive theory is an effective framework to planning and implementation of the educational intervention to promotion of male school children’s breakfast consumption.