Impact of nutrition education on the knowledge of adolescent girls regarding nutrition during pregnancy and lactation

Abstract

Adolescence is one of the crucial phases of life when an individual learns adult behaviour and gets ready to take important decisions in life. It is also known as the storm age of life as the individual goes through lots of stress because this is the direction deciding stage of life. In the case of Indian adolescent girls, lots of social taboos and expectations expose these adolescent girls to challenges of life during their early years. In order to strengthen adolescent girls in the age group of 15-18 years regarding nutrition during pregnancy and lactation, a pre and post-test research study was undertaken with 100 adolescent girls, selected randomly from three government schools of Sikar district, Rajasthan. The objectives of the study were to assess the existing knowledge of adolescent girls regarding nutrition during pregnancy and lactation and analysis of the impact of training on the existing knowledge. A training manual was designed by the researcher and data were collected through a questionnaire schedule and analysed using frequency, mean percentage and paired t-test. Results of the study suggest that training programmes had a huge impact on the knowledge of adolescent girls. This might be because adolescent girls have the curiosity to learn and the training programme was participatory in nature. It can be concluded that adolescents can be trained on various aspects of nutrition during the lifecycle, health, entrepreneurial skill development, or digital literacy.