Assessment of the knowledge that forms a conscious need for healthy nutrition in school children as the main element of a healthy lifestyle

Introduction. The authors present the results of a study devoted to the issue of forming the basics of healthy eating for schoolchildren in the Russian Federation, which is the main goal of ‘Demography' National project, aimed at monitoring schoolchildren's nutrition and health. An important part of solving this problem is raising schoolchildren's awareness of and their commitment to the principles of healthy nutrition, as factors reducing the risk of overweight and obesity, which are predictors of alimentary-related diseases. The aim of the research is to examine awareness of and adherence to the principles of healthy eating among schoolchildren with different body mass index in the Russian Federation in order to develop an integrated approach to activities and interventions aimed at developing healthy eating habits and eating behavior according the principles of healthy eating. Materials and Methods. The work used sociological (questionnaires), analytical and statistical research methods. The study was conducted in 66 constituent entities (federal subjects) of the Russian Federation among students in educational institutions and their parents (legal representatives) and heads of educational institutions in accordance with MR 2.3.0167-20, approved by the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation A.Yu. Popova, March, 20, 2020). The study was conducted in the form of a sociological survey. The assessment of anthropometric indicators given by the respondents during the survey was carried out using the WHO methodology (2007). Statistical processing was conducted using the STATISTICA-10.0 system and Microsoft Excel using descriptive methods of statistics and t-test (in case of normal data distribution) and Fisher (U). Differences were considered statistically significant at p function show_eabstract() { $('#eabstract1').hide(); $('#eabstract2').show(); $('#eabstract_expand').hide(); }