Snack food consumption among grade four and grade five primary school students in six cities of China / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To understand snack food consumption among students of grade four and grade five in six cities of China, and to provide evidence for conducting nutritional education and making intervention strategies.@*Methods@#A multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling method was used to select 12 197 primary school students in grade four and grade five from 72 primary schools in Beijing,Guangzhou,Nanjing,Chongqing,Jinan,Harbin. All the participants were administered with a self-administered questionnaire survey on dietary behaviors.@*Results@#The proportion of pupils who consumed snack food at home, school and elsewhere was 96.4%, 59.4% and 75.5% respectively. The most popular snacks at home were fruits & vegetables, milk, cereals (72.0%, 71.1%, 68.6%), the most popular snacks at school were fruits & vegetables, milk, cereals (30.0%, 28.2%, 23.8%), the most popular snacks in other places were sugars, cereals and beverages (36.6%, 36.2%, 35.7%). The top five reasons for snack food was being delicious, healthy/nutritious, clean, choices of peers and family members (68.5%, 49.3%, 42.2%, 24.7%, 17.8%, respectively).@*Conclusion@#Snack food consumption is popular among primary students, most of which are unhealthy. Nutrition education for students and parents should be encouraged to promote students to consume snacks reasonably and develop healthy eating behaviors.