Abstract
Healthy nutritious foods have been replaced by the new food mantra “JUNK FOOD!” junk food comprises of anything that is, cookies, cakes, chips, pizza, burger, soft drinks etc., that contains high sugar, calories, fats, oils etc. Fast food has become a prominent feature of diet for adolescents. The rapidly changing food consumption patterns and diet transition emerging in the society due to economic growth and new lifestyle choices it demands variety food products. It is clear that fast food is generally unhealthy. The objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of Self-instructional module regarding junk foods among students. The research design adopted for this study is quasi experimental one group pre-test post-test design. The setting is selected higher secondary school in Tarn Taran, Punjab. The sample size is 60 students. Sampling technique used was simple random sampling. A structured knowledge questionnaire was used to assess knowledge and assess the effectiveness of self-instructional module. The reliability of the tool was established by using test, retest method. Differential and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data. The result indicate that the pretest mean knowledge score on knowledge regarding junk food found to be 12.7 and SD = 58.64. The post-test mean knowledge score on knowledge regarding junk food to be found 20.37 and SD = 110.76. This indicates that the self-instructional module was proved to be effective to increase the knowledge of the students regarding junk food. The impact of age, Sex, education, family income, type of family, residing place, dietary habits, education of mother and education of father on knowledge of the students found to be non-significant as the calculated value is less than the tabulated value at 0.05 level of significance. Chi-square test result depicts the non-significant impact of socio demographic variables on the knowledge score of students regarding junk food. So the investigator concluded that the health is very important for each individual and knowledge regarding junk food will help the students to restore the health and prevent from life threatening conditions. A Community health nurse is expected to give nursing care as well as health teaching to prevent the occurrence of complications result from consumption of junk foods.
Keywords: Junk food, self-instructional module, knowledge, school students
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