Nutritional Dietary Education for the Community of Manggihan Village, Semarang Regency

Abstract

Manggihan Village, Semarang Regency, faces health problems related to an unbalanced diet with a high prevalence of hypertension (45.8%) and diabetes (25%) among its residents. The initial survey showed that 66.7% of participants had insufficient nutritional knowledge, dominated by the age group >50 years (47.9%) and women (58.3%). This service activity aims to increase public understanding about balanced nutrition through educational interventions. The program is implemented in 4 stages: (1) problem identification through field surveys, (2) preparation of educational materials, (3) implementation of activities in the form of counseling, cooking demonstrations and participatory discussions, and (4) evaluation using a pretest-posttest questionnaire. The 48 participants were analyzed descriptively using frequency distribution and paired t-test. There was a significant increase in participants' knowledge with the average score increasing from 42.5 to 76.3. The percentage of participants with good knowledge jumped from 8.3% to 54.2%, while the poor category dropped drastically from 66.7% to 8.3%. The intervention was proven to be effective, especially in understanding the principles of balanced nutrition and menu management for comorbidities. Conclusion: Participatory-based nutrition education is effective in increasing the health literacy of the Manggihan Village community. For sustainability, regular assistance is needed by health cadres and integration of nutritional materials in the posyandu program. These findings recommend replication of the program in areas with similar characteristics.