Strengthening eating habits through a communication program: case study: Colegio Inter Canadiense de Puebla

In the current decade, obesity and malnourishment cases in urban and rural zones of Mexico have increased dramatically. Consequently, the number of diseases spread through this main symptom, such as diabetes and cholesterol, could aggravate the living conditions for Mexican inhabitants in a few years. This is what makes evident for the country, the need to reorient vulnerable communities about how to accomplish better and healthy eating habits as well as urge populations to achieve a better quality of life. Considering that one of the most vulnerable communities, facing eating habit problems, is the teenage population, this Project has focused on the case study of students from junior high school, belonging to the Colegio Inter Canadiense de Puebla. The aim of this project is to design a communication program which supports and reinforces eating habits inside the school community. To design the effective communication program, a quantitative diagnosis, through 41 question survey, has been developed. This has been in order to (1) identify (internal/external) factors which affect the nutrition of the school community,(2) to determine the student’s and parent’s needs of information on related food and nutrition topics, and (3) to identify the media which may allow an adequate dissemination for the communication program. Through this instrument has been possible to recognize the problems and issues in which the communication program must proceed, besides its results will help to trace the objectives and characteristics of the implementing program