Encouraging children to consume foods with less sugar

Eating food with a higher sugar content represents a significant risk to human health. To decrease the number of people whose sugar intake is higher than recommended, it is necessary to make people aware of the risks, especially among children and adolescents. By the means of education in the field of nutrition behaviour from the early age, we can have an influence on the decrease of the risk of developing diseases, typical for high sugar intake. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the suitability of the designed and performed nutrition workshops for the population of children. The nutrition workshops were carried out in an elementary school. The workshops’ goal was to influence the pupils’ viewpoints and intentions regarding the consumption of food with higher sugar content and to inform them about excessive sugar consumption risks. The target group was the pupils from the 5th and the 6th grade in elementary school. Workshops were carried out by the promoters of healthy eating. The workshop results evaluation showed that pupils mostly want practical nutrition education with active participation. In our analysis, we did not detect specific changes in dietary behaviour of the pupils; they did, however, express their intention to drink water more often than sugary drinks and avoid drinking beverages with higher sugar content. They also expressed their intention to pay more attention to the amount of sugar in food before eating it. The evaluation of the workshop showed that it is necessary to properly educate unprofessional promoters of healthy eating, so that they will have the proper nutrition and pedagogic knowledge and at the same time that their approach to organization and performance of workshops must be professional