The Effect of School Knowledge about Eating Habits

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine the effect of school knowledge about eating habits on adolescents’ self-esteem. Questionnaires were administered to 1336 high school students (843 girls and 493 boys) in Tokyo, Niigata, and Fukuoka. It was found that eating habits were significantly different by gender. However, an exploratory factor analysis indicated that the structures of boys’ and girls’ eating habits were the same. Factor analysis extracted four factors, which were labeled as “valuing every day meals,” “valuing body control,” “valuing favorite food,” and “valuing nutritional balance.” The results of one-way analysis of variance indicated that adolescents’ positive attitude toward home economics education was significantly related to boys’ higher self-esteem. Two-way analysis of variance showed that “valuing every day meals” and school knowledge about eating habits had an interaction effect on adolescents’ self-esteem. That is, the self-esteem of adolescents who valued every day meals but less knowledge about nutrition was low. Adolescents who had considerable knowledge about nutrition but did not value every day meals also had low self-esteem. When adolescents had knowledge about nutrition and favorable eating habits, their selfesteem was the highest. These results indicated that adolescents’ favorable eating behavior with school knowledge about eating habits are important for their self-esteem.