The Effect of Freire's Educational Model on Attitude Change and Eating Disorders in Students

Background and

Eating disorders and abnormal attitudes towards eating in adolescents, especially girls, are among fundamental problems of societies. In order to make useful interventions for detecting eating disorders and attitude change at early stages, an appropriate and capable model is required. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of Freire’s educational model on attitude change and eating disorders in students. Methods and Materials: This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 60 female first-grade overweight high school students in 2010. They were non-randomly sampled from two high school in Mashad, Iran and were assigned into experimental and control groups. A standard questionnaire (EAT-26) was used for collecting data on eating disorders and nutritional attitude; the participants completed the questionnaire before and one month after the educational intervention. For data analysis, central tendency and dispersion indexes and independent t-test and paired t-test were used in SPSS 11.5.

The mean abnormal attitude score of the experimental group reduced from 8.53 before intervention to 4.16 after intervention (p<0.001). There was no change in the abnormal attitude of the control group (P=0.613). Also, the experimental group BMI reduced from 27.49 before instruction to 26.09 after intervention (p<0.001). Also, the eating disorder reduced from 6.4% before intervention to 3.2% after intervention (p<0.001). However, There was no significant differences between groups after the intervention as for their eating disorders (P=0.810).

The educational intervention by Freire’s educational model in school settings made favorable changes in student's attitudes and eating disorders.