Children Food and Nutrition Literacy - a New Challenge in Daily Health and Life, the New Solution: Using Intervention Mapping Model Through a Mixed Methods Protocol

Abstract

Food and nutrition literacy is a fundamental and new idiom among health policymakers. Improving children’s food and nutrition literacy is a fundamental task, and it requires detailed planning. The aim of this study is to design, implement, and evaluate a food and nutrition literacy promotion intervention in elementary school children based on the Intervention Mapping model. This is a sequential study to design, implement, and evaluate a food and nutrition literacy promotion intervention in elementary school children aged 10-12 years old in Baneh city (Kurdistan, Iran). The study has three sequential phases, six steps based on the Intervention Mapping model, and four sub-studies. The questionnaire was transformed and culturally adapted since it was previously built for the city of Tehran; the results of a population-based cross-sectional survey indicated that the score for understanding food and nutrition information of a sample of 390 students aged 10-12 was mostly moderate and low (90.3% of participants). Therefore, a qualitative study on how to fix existing barriers, and extract facilitators and the best methods of interventions for promoting food and nutrition literacy of participants was conducted. Finally, an interventional study within six months for two intervention and control groups of elementary children 10-12 years old was carried out. The findings of this research will be used to design interventions and strategies based on needs assessment for improving students’ skills in food and nutrition literacy in all dimensions of food and nutrition literacy.