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Milk and dairy products in alimentation of primary school children
HONZEJKOVÁ, Sára
Milk and milk products are irreplaceable in the children´s nutrition. Substances which milk contains assist children to the proper growth and development. The most important substances are for example proteins or calcium and therefore it´s necessary to feed children with milk. Children consume milk practically since birth. However, milk consumption may be associated with health problems, such as milk allergy or lactose intolerance. In order to increase the consumption of milk was introduced subsidized program "School Milk", which can be used by all kindergartens, primary and secondary schools in the Czech Republic. The research was based on a quantitative approach. The research tool has become a questionnaire given out to three grades of selected elementary school. Research shows that the selected students consume milk in sufficient amounts, especially cow's milk, which has chosen the 93.8% of respondents. It is primarily milk skimmed and not flavoured. Respondents prefer the most milk itself, then yogurt (56.9%), cheese (55.1%) and butter (50.2%), regardless of age or gender. Among the most popular cheeses include semi-hard cheese, which prefers the 82 respondents from a total of 225. Dislikes are then other fermented products such as sour buttermilk, which is preferred only by 7.6% of respondents, or kefir. Some of the products are completely unknown to the pupils. For example sour milk never tasted more than 71% of respondents. In the health effects and milk production pupils have very limited knowledge; especially pupils in lower grades have very limited knowledge. To name at least one important substance for human health was able to do less than half of the respondents. The most commonly mentioned was calcium and protein, and other substances only sporadically. Also knowledge of milk production has proven to be very tricky. A total of 56.9% of respondents said they do not know any dairy. Percentage using a subsidized program "School Milk" is very low. This program uses only 32.9% of pupils, especially in the lower grades. The research showed that 17.3% of students are overweight or obese, especially the girls in the 5th grade.
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