Ahmad Zabidi Abdul Razak

Building healthy eating habits in childhood: a study of the attitudes, knowledge and dietary habits of schoolchildren in Malaysia

Background Overweight and obesity have increased rapidly in incidence to become a global issue today. Overweight and obesity problems are significantly linked to unhealthy dietary patterns, physical inactivity and misperception of body image. This study aimed to determine whether Malaysian children build healthy eating habits from childhood. Methods A survey on eating habits was conducted among primary school students in standards 4 to 6 in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. The findings of the study were reported in the form of descriptive statistics involving frequencies and percentages. Data from 400 respondents were analyzed. Results Our findings showed that the students understood the definition of healthy food and the types of food that are considered healthy. Although the students knew that food such as deep-fried drumsticks and hamburgers contain a high amount of saturated fat and cholesterol, these foods were still consumed by them. There was also a high consumption of foods that are fried and contain sugar, salt and saturated fat. In choosing food, two major factors contributed to the students’ decisions: cleanliness (65.8%) and the preference of their parents (12.3%). Discussion Our findings indicate that by implementing the Integrated School Health Program (ISHP) properly, students’ eating habits can be improved by creating a school with a healthy environment.

Determining the Key Capacities of Effective Leaders in Malaysian Public and Private Focused Universities

The study was undertaken to identify the essential leadership capabilities and managerial competencies as the key leadership performance drivers in Malaysian focused universities. To collect data, the previously developed scales of capabilities, competencies, and leadership performance in the context of Malaysian Higher Education (HE) were distributed among the leaders in seven public focused and 12 private focused universities. In total, 172 completed surveys were collected among which 94 had been filled out by the leaders in Malaysian public focused and 78 had been completed by leaders in private focused universities. The data were screened and SmartPLS 3 was employed to analyze the data. Also, Finite Mixture Partial Least Squares (FIMIX-PLS) segmentation and Importance–Performance Map Analysis (IPMA) were run to extend the results. The outcome of FIMIX-PLS didn’t reveal unobserved heterogeneity within the data and, through IPMA, change-oriented capability was identified as the main improvement area to be addressed by management activities. Moreover, the implications of the findings were discussed and future directions were recommended.

Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Responses to Changing Educational Policy: A Malaysian Experience

This study aims to explore on how PTA members’ respond to a changing educational policy. Data were collected through interviews with selected PTA members from two secondary schools in Kedah, Malaysia. In total, six participants were involved in this qualitative study. Data analysis was carried out through analytic categories based on hermeneutics philosophy. The findings indicate that the PTA members believed that implementation of a new educational policy is only related to school, it was also believed that some challenges emerged at school as a result of the implementation of the policy and they provide ways that can assist the school to implement the new educational policy. The findings are essential to the Ministry of Education in involving parent in the implementation of a policy as it was stated that “one of the targets of the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013–2025 is to engage every PTA to provide input on how the school can make the national curriculum more relevant to the needs of the local community” (Ministry of Education 2012).