Gender effect on eating habits of Nigerian school children.

ABSTRACT: It is important to investigate children's eating habits based on different eating behaviors such as satiety responsiveness (SR), slowness in eating (SE), food fussiness (FF), food responsiveness (FR), enjoyment of food (EF), desire to drink (DD), emotional under-eating (EUE), and emotional over-eating (EOE). The main objective of this research was to investigate whether gender affects the eating habits of Nigerian school children.A cross-sectional survey was conducted between March and June 2019. A total of 120 parents of school children participated in the study. The Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ) was used to collect data. The CEBQ is composed of 35 items and eight subscales.Based on the analysis of parents' reports, DD was higher in boys than girls, t (118) = 7.086, P < .001; EOE was higher in boys than girls, t (118) = 5.184, P < .001; EF was higher in boys than girls, t (118) = 2.183, P < .001; FF was higher in boys than girls, t (118) = 9.441, P < .001; and SR was higher in boys than girls, t (118) = 7.323, P < .001. However, EUE was lower in boys than girls, t (118) = -4.339, P < .001; FR was lower in boys than girls, t(118) = -3.112, P < .001; SE was lower in boys than girls, t(118) = -3.832, P < .001; thus, gender had a significant influence on eating habits of the school children.Gender significantly affects the eating habits of Nigerian school children. Thus, gender is an important factor to be considered when aiming to improve the eating habits of Nigerian school children.

Effect of a critical thinking intervention on stress management among undergraduates of adult education and extramural studies programs.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to examine the effect of a critical thinking intervention (CTI) on stress management among undergraduates of adult education and extramural studies programs. METHOD: A total of 44 undergraduates were randomly sorted into experimental and waitlist control groups. We used the Perceived Stress Scale for data collection at the pre-test, post-test, and follow-up stages. We used unpaired t and paired t-tests to analyze the data collected. SPSS version 22.0 was used for the data analyses (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). RESULTS: It was shown that the CTI was effective in reducing the mean stress of the participants compared to the control group both in the post-test (t[42] = -22.453, P < .001) and follow-up periods (t[42] = -34.292, P < .001). There were statistically significant changes in the mean stress of participants in the experimental group from the pre-test to post-test phases (t[23] = 26.30, P = .000, r = .08], and from pre-test to follow-up(t[23] = 37.10, P = .000, r = .30). The mean stress of the participants in the experimental group from post-test to follow-up signified the sustained positive influence of the CTI on the mean stress (t[23] = 2.41, P = .000, r = .46) of the undergraduates. CONCLUSION: This study adds to the literature by showing that a CTI is a valuable strategy for stress reduction in a university environment. Given that the CTI demonstrated the ability to reduce stress among undergraduates enrolled in adult education and extramural studies programs, we hope that similar interventions will be adopted to manage and prevent stress among students in other departments and disciplines.