Effectiveness of six table games in teaching basic nutrition concepts

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of six board games to teach food and nutrition, personal hygiene and physical activity in children of elementary school education. Methods: Cluster randomized controlled study of children in basic education (7-12 year old) enrolled in the city schools from the District of Bogotá. Two local schools were selected and randomized to intervention or control group. In the intervention group were 472 children and 487 were in the control group. Children's knowledge was assessed using a questionnaire at three different times. To analyze the model we used generalized estimating equations (GEE) for repeated measures to study the effect of the intervention over time. Results: In relation to knowledge the intervention group increased its score in the second time, on a scale of 0-100 steps from 49.4 to 61.8 (p<0.001) and remained at the time. In the control group there was not a change in the score of time. Conclusions: The results suggest that the six games can be effective tools in teaching basic concepts in food, nutrition and health to schoolchildren.