Beans: feasible practices for mothers of school children.

Abstract

Feasible practices with regards to bean purchase,

storage, preparation, consumption and preservation for

mothers of school children from a Costa Rican urban

community were identified in this study. Nineteen ideal

practices were defined based on the mothers’ actual practices

which were obtained through an initial assessment. These

ideal practices were used later on to conduct behavior tests,

in order to identify the feasible practices, i.e., those that have

a good chance of being adopted by the population. Through

the behavior tests, it was determined that out of the proposed

ideal practices, eight were feasible to be adopted by the

mothers. They considered that these practices were

innovative, simplified their daily chores, or provided some

kind of health benefit. On the contrary, practices that were

more laborious, required previous planning or implied a

drastic change in their alimentary habits were the ones that

resulted least feasible. This work concluded that the most

feasible practices for the population to adopt are those that

are not very different from their usual alimentary practices.

For this reason, whenever a change is to be made in a group

of individuals, the effort must start from their day-to-day

habits.