Nutritional intervention techniques in the consumption of foods that are sources of iron in preschoolers

Introduction: Deficient intake of food sources of iron is a risk factor for the development of iron deficiency anemia in children, it is necessary to identify the most effective nutri-tional educational intervention strategy in an urban and dy-namic community environment.Objective: To compare the effect of the nutritional educa-tional intervention through two techniques, on the consump-tion of foods that are sources of iron in preschoolers residing in an urban area.Materials and Methods: A study with a quantitative ap-proach, applied, experimental design of the uncontrolled trial type, carried out in 80 preschoolers from 3 to 5 years of age, was carried out. Two groups of 40 (mother and son) were se-lected for a synchronous and face-to-face nutritional educa-tional intervention respectively. Before and after the nutri-tional educational intervention, the iron consumption of the preschoolers was evaluated in both groups, through a ques-tionnaire on the frequency of consumption of foods that are sources of iron. For the statistical analysis, the Student's T statistical test was applied.Results: Before the intervention, the average dietary iron intake was 1,25 +/- 0,29 mg (synchronous nutritional inter-vention) and 1,17 +/- 0,27 mg (face-to-face nutritional inter-vention). After the intervention it was 1,35 +/- 0,19 mg (syn-chronous nutritional intervention) and 2,63 +/- 0,35 mg (synchronous nutritional intervention). There is a difference in iron consumption before and after the nutritional educa-tional intervention of the synchronous and face-to-face technique (p<0,001).Conclusion: The nutritional intervention technique, under the face-to-face modality, was the most effective in increas-ing the consumption of foods that are sources of iron in preschoolers residing in an urban area.