Abstract
Introduction: During the developmental years, including elementary school ages, proper nutrition plays a crucial role in supporting the body’s success in achieving adequate cognitive development, regulating mood, and promoting longevity, thereby limiting the risk of lifestyle metabolic diseases. When nutrition education is provided to promote healthy decisions, teachers often are the chosen translators of the nutrition education content. With this service, teachers can influence students' health behaviors and outcomes. For teachers to successfully contribute to students confidently choosing positive health choices in life, teachers must feel self-assured when teaching nutrition to create an engaging and learning atmosphere.Methods: This mixed-methods study uses cross-sectional data from a validated survey, the Nutrition-Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (NTSES), and individual Zoom interviews to examine the relationships between teacher self-efficacy, nutrition interest, perceptions of an annual workshop, and demographic characteristics among elementary teacher volunteers in a northern California school district.
Results: Quantitative results showed that teaching self-efficacy was positively associated with greater personal interest in nutrition, more time a month spent teaching nutrition, and more years participating as a teacher volunteer in the program. Significant group differences in teaching self-efficacy were also found across interest in nutrition and years involved in the program. In contrast, student outcome self-efficacy showed fewer significant relationships across variables. Qualitative findings supported these results, with teachers describing interest, experience, and repeated program involvement as contributors to confidence, while also identifying time constraints and competing academic demands as barriers.
Conclusions: Findings suggest that teacher confidence in delivering nutrition education is shaped more strongly by intrinsic interest and sustained program involvement than by demographic factors alone. These results support the need for school-based nutrition programs to strengthen ongoing support, encourage long-term engagement, and align training with classroom realities to improve implementation.