The knowledge of school children about nutrition and health has increased, the first monitoring and evaluation report of the Nutrition and Food Science Department of the University of Ghana has said.

The monitoring and evaluation also assessed the children’s knowledge in hygiene and sanitary practices as well as behavioral change in the implementing schools.

The programme, dubbed “Nestlé Healthy Kids” is a global programme, which aims to raise awareness about nutrition, health and wellness, and promote physical activity among school children around the world through better eating, healthy hydration, greater physical activity or other key health measures such as hygiene.

In Ghana, the programme is implemented in partnership with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the University of Ghana’s Nutrition and Food Science Department.

Dr Gloria Otoo, a lecturer at the Nutrition and Food Science Department of the University of Ghana, who presented the report at a dissemination workshop, noted that the results demonstrated that the programme was effective in improving the overall nutrition knowledge and practice of beneficiary pupils.

She explained that to date, more than 10,000 pupils, 360 teachers and officials from six districts have benefited from the Nestle Healthy Kids programme.

Dr Otoo noted that in the Central and Western regions,19.2 per cent and 34.2 per cent of children, respectively, who were part of the programme, were able to correctly identify more food groups and food nutrients, compared to 7.8 per cent and. 3.4 per cent, respectively, of children who were not part of the programme.

Nestlé is the first company in the country to introduce an intervention for nutrition education at primary-school level.

It started on a pilot basis in 2011 in selected cocoa growing districts of Juaboso and Agona East in the Western and Central regions, respectively, and was expanded to cover Savelugu-Nanton, Kwahu North, Afram Plains and Adansi South/North in the Northern, Eastern and Ashanti regions respectively, in 2013.

The report advised parents to be concerned about the nutrition and health needs of their children and recommended that parents should also be involved in educating children on good nutrition to help them make choices in relation to eating healthy diets.

The report recommended that the programme develops a parent component in order to enhance behavior change of pupils since the role of parents in the diets of children could not be over-emphasized.

The Acting Director-General of the GES, Mr Charles Tsegal, commended the Nestle Ghana for their initiative in promoting good health of school children and advised Nestle to use teachers to run the programme in the selected schools to make it more successful.

Mr Aaron Fenu, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager, who read the speech for Mr Moataz El Hout, Managing Director of Nestlé Ghana, said Nestle Ghana would continue to develop new ways to measure the effectiveness of the programme.

“Over time, we want to develop it into an evidence-based, impactful initiative that contributes to the health of local school communities,” he said.

He noted that the “long-term success of the programme would depend on the ability of the education system to reintroduce nutrition education and physical activity in participating schools.