Nutrition education improves serum retinol concentration among adolescent school girls.

Dietary diversification has been identified as a sustainable intervention method in developing countries where subclinical vitamin A deficiency exists. Nutrition education is central to all methods of nutrition intervention including dietary diversification. The paucity of available data currently limits the effective use of nutrition education in national programs in Sri Lanka. We assessed the effect of nutrition education on nutrition related knowledge, food consumption patterns and serum retinol concentrations among 229 adolescent school girls, aged between 15-19 years. Knowledge on nutrition, food consumption patterns and serum retinol concentration was assessed at baseline. Intervention included nutrition education as lecture discussions, interactive group discussions and four different methods of reinforcement. Knowledge, food consumption patterns and serum retinol concentrations were reassessed after a ten week period of intervention. Educational intervention resulted in a significant increase in knowledge (P < 0.001) and consumption of local vitamin A rich foods. The percentage of subjects with low serum retinol concentrations (<20 microg/dL) decreased from 17% to 4.8%. The effect of nutrition education on serum retinol concentration was highly significant (P<0.001) in subjects with baseline serum retinol concentrations below 20 microg/L. Nutrition education was effective in improving knowledge and food consumption patterns among these girls. Effectiveness was of biological significance, as a positive change in serum retinol concentration was observed in subjects with initially low concentrations, and not in subjects with initially normal serum concentrations.