Nutritional status affects the process of growth and development of children, one of which is intellectual ability which will have an impact on children's learning achievement at school (Hardinsyah 2007). Improvements in nutrition are needed throughout the life cycle, starting from pregnancy, infants and toddlers, preschoolers, elementary and middle school children, adolescents and adults to old age (Heath et al. (2005). The assets of human resources and the nation's next generation are children.Â
School-age children are the nation's investment as successors and determine the quality of a nation, therefore efforts to improve the quality of human resources must be focused early, systematically and continuously. The provision of nutrition with good and correct quality and quantity greatly affects the growth and development of school-age children (Judarwanto 2010). Primary school students are strategic targets in improving nutritional status (Calderón 2002; Choi et al. 2008).
Substances for building or growth are proteins, proteins are new tissue-forming materials in the body. The function of protein is to maintain the body's resistance to certain diseases because protein is an antibody forming (Hardinsyah 2007). The most important role of protein is as a major component of muscles and body tissues. Protein can also be used to produce hormones, enzymes and hemoglobin (Hoffman & Falvo 2004). Protein quality is an illustration of how the protein contained in the food will affect growth seen from the composition of essential amino acids, the body's ability to digest, and the bioavailability of the amino acids it contains (Schaafsma 2000; Hoffman & Falvo 2004).Â
Increasing protein synthesis will slowly cause muscle hypertrophy which will ultimately affect muscle strength (Rasmussen 2000; Philip et al. 2005). Animal food ingredients are good sources of protein, both in quantity and quality, such as eggs, milk, meat, poultry, fish, and shellfish. Sources of vegetable protein are soybeans and their products, such as tempeh and tofu, as well as other nuts. Soybeans are a source of vegetable protein has the highest quality or biological value. As previously described, legume protein is limited in the amino acid methionine. This condition shows the respondent is good at regulating the consumption of food enters his body.
Previous studies discussed nutritional knowledge include research conducted by Pahlevi (2012) regarding the determinants of nutritional status in elementary school students, discussing low nutritional knowledge can hinder efforts to improve nutrition both in families and communities. However, there has been no research discusses the importance of knowledge on one of the aspects affect nutrition, namely protein. Therefore, this study aims to determine the extent of knowledge of elementary school students about the importance of good protein for the body and how much protein is needed by the body in accordance with normal growth depending on the nutrients of each student of Tunas Karya State Elementary School. the sample in this study. The novelties of this study are (1) people pay more attention to the importance of protein intake according to the needs of children's growth and development; (2) the public can know about the benefits of consuming protein; (3) people are more aware to consume foods contain high protein to support the child's development process.
2. Materials and MethodsÂ
2.1. Research Subject
The subjects of this research were 6th grade students of Tunas Karya State Elementary School in Sukawana Village. The sample included 12 students, 7 boys and 5 girls between the ages of 11 and 12.
2.2. Research Design Analysis
Collecting research data by distributing questionnaires to 6th grade students of Tunas Karya State Elementary School. The research procedure was carried out by giving a questionnaire as a pretest, then doing treatment by providing socialization and education to students about the importance of good protein nutrition for the body. the importance of protein nutrition for the body. The data processing approach used is a quantitative approach. The researcher made 20 pretest questions and 20 posttest questions. The types of questions given are 10 questions with Yes and No answers, 10 questions with multiple choice answers. The scoring of the answers is marked as 1 for correct answers and 0 for incorrect answers.
The questions measure the level of knowledge about protein consisting of 20 questions are as follows:
