Effect of Health Education Program for Changing Food Consumption Behavior Among Grade 6 Students Buriram Province*

Abstract

This quasi-experimental research aimed to assess the effect of a health
education program for promoting knowledge, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, social
support and food consumption behavior among Grade 6 students. The samples were
composed of 90 students, and were grouped into an experimental group and a
comparison group, with 45 students each. The experimental group participated in a
health education program that applied Self-efficacy theory and Social Support. The
learning activities were lecture with Power Point presentation, video, group discussion,
games, food preparation practices, mastery learning, modeling, verbal persuasion,
emotional arousal and social support from their parents and teachers. Data analysis was
done by computing statistics including frequencies, percentages, arithmetic means,
Paired sample t-tests, and Independent t-tests. The results showed that after the
intervention, the experimental group had significantly higher mean scores with
knowledge, self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and social support compared to their
mean scores before the program and those of the comparison group. But food
consumption behavior was not different from the comparison group.