Abstract

SANCHEZ-SOCARRAS, Violeida; BLANCO, Meritxell; BOSCH, Carme  and  VAQUE, Cristina. Knowledge about energy drinks: an educational experience in high school students from Barcelona, Spain. Rev Esp Nutr Hum Diet [online]. 2016, vol.20, n.4, pp.263-272. ISSN 2174-5145.  https://dx.doi.org/10.14306/renhyd.20.4.228.

Introduction: Recently there has been an increase in energy drink consumption in young and adolescents, leading to caffeine abuse. This increased consumption served as motivation for creating an educational workshop in a collective of adolescents. The aim of this work was improving the level of knowledge about energy drinks and to assess the impact on the knowledge of the workshop. Material and Methods: It was performed an intervention study with pre- and post- intervention assessment in a high school in Manresa, Barcelona. A questionnaire about energy drinks was applied before and after performing an educational workshop designed with teaching techniques, according to the preferred Learning Styles. Results: The learning techniques used in the workshop, corresponded to the preferred strategies for aural style (32.3%) and kinesthetic style (23.7%). In the previous assessment: 76.3% of adolescents define Energy Drinks as isotonic drinks, the most recognize their high caffeine content (95%); 61.3% consider that provide energy for the sport, 76.3% that can cause nervousness and 28% believe that they must not be consumed by adolescents. In the post-intervention assessment increased the number of correct answers to all questions in the questionnaire. Conclusions: Most of the adolescents have little or no knowledge about energy drinks and about health consequences of their consumption. This knowledge increased significantly after an educational workshop with participatory and cooperatives techniques which were selected according to the preferred learning strategies of the participants.

Keywords : Health Education; Energy Drinks; Caffeine; Learning.

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