Teachers' perspectives on nutrition education in boys' public high schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Background: Nutrition education in school may positively affect students' eating behaviour. Teachers need to be empowered to teach nutrition, but no studies have investigated teachers' views on this topic in Saudi Arabia. Aims: This study investigated the perspective of teachers on nutrition education and their confidence in teaching it in boys' public high schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Methods: In 2015, 80 boys' public high schools were randomly selected from four areas of Riyadh, and 80 teachers (biological sciences, physical education and health education teachers) were interviewed using a validated questionnaire. A Fisher exact test was run to test the relationship between teachers' perspective and confidence level, and their subject taught. Results: Almost all the teachers (98%) agreed that the health education curriculum should be taught as a core subject for high-school students. Most of the teachers (89%) were interested in teaching nutrition. However, 64% indicated that they did not have adequate nutrition curricular materials and 70% considered that they had not received adequate training on nutrition education. However, 89% were confident that their students would be interested in nutrition and that such education would change their dietary behaviour. Science and health education teachers were more interested in teaching nutrition and were more confident in their ability to do so than physical education teachers (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Most of the teachers were interested in teaching nutrition but barriers existed, such as lack of training and teaching materials, which affected teachers' confidence in delivering nutrition education in their curricula.