Presentation ID #10: Click here to view presentation.
Abstract: Childhood obesity has been on the rise for decades with negative impact on health, psychology of the people and significant economic cost to the society. This project evaluates the effect of an educational intervention to improve parents’ nutrition label literacy as parents make healthy food choices for their children.
The literature review attributes childhood obesity to low parents’ literacy. A systematic literature review shows that the average literacy level in US is at level 3 and numeracy level at level 2. This quantitative descriptive study was conducted at pediatric clinic among parents. The aim of the project was to identify the participants’ nutrition label illiteracy by administering a Food Label Literacy for Applied Nutrition Knowledge (FLLANK) pretest. Thirty participants completed the pre and post intervention questionnaire. 73.3% of the participants had a least a 2-year college degree and 60% made more than $45,000/ year. Counts and percentages were used for the demographic data, while Chi-square and McNemar’s tests were used for unpaired and paired data respectively. The overall result showed that after the educational intervention, there was a statistically significant improvement indicating the parent’s nutrition literacy. The subgroup analysis also had statistically significant results which showed that the participants improved in their nutrition label literacy after the educational intervention. In conclusion, it is important for healthcare providers to initiate early intervention in nutrition literacy in prevention of childhood obesity.
Keywords or phrases: nutrition labeling, parents’ food perceptions, childhood obesity, nutrition facts, food label utilization, and parent food literacy.
Ifunanya Okocha is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She graduated from the University of Nigeria with a bachelor’s degree in Computer science and worked as a programmer with Megatech, a subsidiary of Oracle corporation. Upon her immigration to US, she completed her BSN from Winton Salem State University with Magna Cum Laude and then completed a master’s degree in Community public health nursing and also received a certificate degree in Nursing education in 2015 from UNCC. She then completed a post-master’s training as a family nurse practitioner in 2018 also from UNCC. Ifunanya has been an adjunct faculty at UNCC since 2016 and also works as a pediatric and family medicine nurse practitioner in North & South Carolina. Outside of her career, she volunteers her time in various charity organizations in the US. She is an associate member of the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas and serves in the Care Committee. She is also a member of the African Christian Fellowship and supports their medical missions in various African countries. Ifunanya and her family reside here in Charlotte North Carolina.