A Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Health Education Intervention on Knowledge Regarding Life Style Modification in Prevention of Overweight among Early Adulthood Women at Selected Rural Areas of Shimoga

Abstract

Obesity is defined as an enlargement of fat cell size or an abnormal growth of adipose tissue or increased number of fat cells or the combination of both. The risk factors are considered as sedentary life style, hormonal factors, environmental factors, and nutritional factors etc. The prevalence rate of obesity in India women within the age of 35-45 years is 12.6% .As per National Family Health Survey-3 data India is the country have highest prevalence rate of overweight. An evaluative approach with pre experimental one group pretest posttest design was used with purposive sampling techniques with the sample number of (N=40). A structured questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and health education intervention was administered to find its effectiveness. The collected data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The mean percentage of posttest knowledge score (76.8%) was higher than the mean percentage of pretest knowledge score (54.87%). The calculated’ (15.34) value is greater than the table value (0.05, 39df) = 1.68. It showed a significant difference between mean pre and post – test knowledge scores. Calculated x2 values are showed significant association between age group , educational qualification, marital status, occupational status, type of family, annual family income, area of living , source of information course ,qualification ,religion ,family income , type of family ,region ,previous knowledge and source of information of respondents with their post-test knowledge scores .Hence the both hypothesis is accepted .The finding of the study showed that there was a deficit in knowledge in early adulthood women before administration of Health education intervention. The results indicated that Health education intervention is effective in increasing the knowledge of early adulthood women regarding lifestyle modification and prevention of over weight.