An Educational Awareness Program to Raise the Academic Achievement Resulting from Malnutrition among Primary School Students in Turaif, Saudi Arabia

Malnutrition, its symptoms and consequences have become the disease of the modern era;  ready-made meals, foods with dyes, carbonated water, and foods that depend on taste only for attracting  consumers , especially children can be found everywhere.School students are among the groups most exposed to the problems of malnutrition and its severe consequences, such as skinniness, anemia, academic delay, and decrease in concentration and poor attention among students.The researcher noticed signs of malnutrition clear on the faces of primary school students in Turaif, which prompted him to conduct this study, by virtue of his residence  and work in the educational field. In this study, a special educational program was applied to students in the primary stage, where that program and its effectiveness were tested on 200 students (ages: 6-12 years) who suffer from malnutrition, which led to their academic delay and low grades. The effectiveness of the program was evaluated by following up the academic average of students regularly for six consecutive weeks, which is the duration of that special program. The results and statistics have confirmed the effectiveness of the educational program for these students as a method for educating them about the importance of food and the basic nutrients that are important for a healthy body and mind and also a way for educating them in a theoretical and practical manner about appropriate nutritional behaviors, methods of cleaning food, washing hands before eating and about other contents of the program that was applied with the help of the school teachers.The application of the program has resulted in an increase in the academic averages of students and an up to 94.5% improvement in the level of weak students (rate 1). About 9.5% of students included in this study have got the highest academic average (rate 4), after applying the program for six weeks. The study thus recommends that different organizations and societies, especially schools, universities and educational bodies, apply special programs for people with malnutrition to increase health awareness and food culture for them and their families.