INFLUENCE OF BALANCED DIET INTAKE ON THE SOCIAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT OF PRESCHOOLERS IN SOUTH-WESTERN NIGERIA
Abstract
One of goals of education is to ensure holistic development of children but this is not the case in many schools in Nigeria as many teachers in Nigerian schools only teach children to pass tests and examinations. As a result, direct teaching and assessment of skills like social skills receive less focus in many early childhood settings. This study was therefore carried out to influence of balanced diet intake on the social skills development of preschoolers in South-Western Nigeria. Correlational descriptive research design was adopted in this study and the target population consist of 1,988,629 preschoolers in Lagos, Oyo and Ogun states. A sample of 384 preschool children were selected using multistage sampling procedure. Preschool Children’s Social skills development Rating Scale and Preschool Children’s Balance Diet Intake Rating Scale were the two instruments used for data collection. The reliability coefficients of each instruments were 0.823 and 0.855 respectively. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while simple linear regression was used to test the null hypothesis at the 0.05. Findings indicated high levels of balanced diet intake (mean = 2.94) and social skills development (mean = 2.92) among preschoolers in South-Western Nigeria (F(1,382) = .605 p = 0.437). However, it was found that balanced diet intake does not significantly influence social skills development of preschoolers in South Western Nigeria. As a recommendation, parents should continue to provide a varied and balanced diet at home to maintain the high level of nutritional intake observed among preschool children.
Keywords: Balanced Diet Intake, Social Skills Development, Preschoolers
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