~ 103 ~ International Journal of Home Science 2018; 4(3): 103-107 ISSN: 2395-7476 IJHS 2018; 4(3): 103-107 © 2018 IJHS www.homesciencejournal.com Received: 11-07-2018 Accepted: 15-08-2018 Dr. Upasna Seth Associate Professor, Department of Home Science, Aditi Mahavidyalaya, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India Corresponding Author: Dr. Upasna Seth Associate Professor, Department of Home Science, Aditi Mahavidyalaya, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India Innovative educational program based on banduras social cognitive theory for food label understanding in early adolescents Dr. Upasna Seth DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/23957476.2018.v4.i3b.1154 Abstract Adolescence offers an intervention opportunity to prevent the onset of health damaging behavior, and establish healthy eating habits. In the current scenario, when there are shifts from homemade to prepackaged foods, food labeling could serve as a population-based approach to help consumers make healthy choices. The food label is direct means of communication of product information between buyer and sellers. It enables the consumer to differentiate between foods and brands to make informed purchasing choices. Food labeling represents a valuable tool to help consumers make informed decisions about their diet, life-style and plays an important role by disseminating important nutrition information to consumers. The present study is a school based educational intervention study, designed to measure changes in nutrition related knowledge, understanding and use of nutrition facts on food label by obtaining pre and posttest intervention scores using questionnaire technique. The research work was conducted in four phases. Phase me with objective to assess eating habits, nutrition status of early adolescents and their existing nutrition knowledge, attitude, and understanding of food labels. Phase II to develop an educational program based on Banduras social cognitive theory. Phase III to impart education on food label through the developed educational program and Phase IV to assess the understanding of the adolescents regarding food label. The sample of the study was 490 early adolescent children from seven government schools of Delhi. The experimental group was of 250 and control group comprised of 240 students. The average pretest scores in experimental group for nutrition knowledge were 2.62 which significantly increased to 8.24, for attitude towards information on food label scores significantly increased from 20.41 to 29.92, scores of practice of using information on food label significantly increased from 20.63 to 28.24 and scores for understanding the nutrition facts on food label too significantly increased from 1.24 which to 3.75, whereas no significant improvement in scores were observed in control group. The results thus demonstrate that children participating in this study successfully learned how to read and compare information on food label. The research also, demonstrates that innovative teaching session, on food labels with emphasis on understanding the nutrition facts table can enable children to select foods which are healthy after carefully reading the food label. Keywords: food label, nutrition labeling, package food, food choice, processed food Introduction Technological development, industrialization and globalization have brought revolution in many fields of life. Nutritional and lifestyle related transition is widely evident in developing as well as developed countries. Food preparation methods, eating behavior and attitude towards food have altered radically over a period of time. Research shows that food consumption patterns has significantly changed, with fewer population consuming traditional diets based on cereals, pulses, vegetables and root crops. Today use of ready to eat food, instant food and package food has become a major part of people’s lives. The ready acceptance of processed and convenience foods by consumers is accompanied with a major shift in dietary patterns, resulting in change in nutritional status of people (Ma Sofia, V. et al. 2008) [14] . In India too consumption of non-traditional fast foods, processed foods, and packaged foods has been increasing at a rapid pace, and more so among adolescents and children (Misra, A. and Khurana, L. 2008) [8] . Over the past 20 years, there has been an almost 300% rise in consumption of packaged foods (Procter, K. 2007) [19] .