Food intake frequency of senior primary school students in agrecultural and pastoral areas of Qinghai Province / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To understand the current situation of food intake frequency among schoolage children in agricultural and pastoral areas of Qinghai Province, and to provide a scientific basis for local education departments and schools to formulate scientific nutrition improvement plans and measures.@*Methods@#A multi stage stratified cluster random sampling method was used to select 969 fourth and fifth grade primary school students from 10 primary schools in Hainan Autonomous Prefecture, Haixi Autonomous Prefecture and Haidong City. All the participants were investigated with a questionnaire survey of dietary behaviors.@*Results@#For the fourth and fifth grade primary school students, the highest proportion of "eaten almost every day" were cereal and tuber ( 84.3 %) and fruits (44.6%), and the highest proportion of "barely eaten" was aquatic product (68.1%) and nutritious supplementary (45.9%). The intake of livestock meat and poultry, fishery products, beverages and nutritional supplements of boys was higher than that of girls（ Z =-2.46，-2.46，-2.43，-2.37， P ＜0.05）. The intake of livestock meat and poultry and snacks of fifth grade students was higher than that of fourth grade students, while the intake of fishery products was lower than that of fourth grade students（ Z = -2.66 ，-4.33，-2.65， P ＜0.05）.@*Conclusion@#The frequency of food intake varies among students of differences genders, grades, areas, boarding situation and urbanities. Relevant departments should improve nutrition improvement plans for school age children with different characteristics. Schools and families should carry out nutrition education works to cultivate healthy eating behaviors of students.