A new framework for the evaluation of participatory nutritional education is presented after a review of the concepts relating to participation and empowerment. There was a paradigm change from health education to health learning during the late 1980s in Japan, being similar to that from health education to health promotion in the Ottawa Charter of WHO in 1986. It is more important for people to participate in the planning and decision-making process than in its implementation. Community participation, involvement, organization, and empowerment are closely associated with this participatory approach. Japanese participatory health education, which is called health learning, closely resembles the idea of educational empowerment based on Freire's idea. In summary, participatory nutritional education needs the active involvement of participants in the decision-making process, dialogue among the participants, and identification of their problems and the social roots of these problems by critical thinking, besides empowerment for the action to overcome obstacles in achieving their goals.
Few papers have been published in Japan on participatory nutritional education, and there is a need to discuss more about the methodology and to put most emphasis on the evaluation. In an ideal evaluation of participatory nutritional education, both an evaluation of the process and of the outcome are needed. The process evaluation should involve measurement on each level to identify individual, organizational, and community change. For the outcome evaluation, measurement should be made on each level to identify the knowledge, skill, attitude and behavior related to food and nutrition, food consumption, nutrient intake, nutritional and health status, and quality of life. The framework that I present in this article is intended to be useful for these evaluations.
