School-age is a children period of growth and development into adolescence. Therefore, adequate intake of nutrients and food that is safe to consume is very important. According to Bondika (2011), only about 5% of school-aged children bring foods from home, so school-age children tend to buy snacks at school. However, there are potential problems on the safety of snack food sold at the school, namely the hazardous food contamination (microbiological & chemical), the hygiene and sanitation problem during its preparation, as well as the contribution of snack foods as unhealthy source of calories. Ensuring food safety of snack sold at school is very important in order to create quality human resources (MoH 2001). Food safety level of school snacks is still poor and has become a serious problem. One of the ways that can be done is to provide rules or conditions for sellers who will sell their foods in canteen or around the school environment. According to Notoatmodjo (2003a), with the rules that must be obeyed, then it may help the changes of one’s behavior.
The overall objective of this research was to assess food safety of snacks sold in school environment consumed by school children in urban and rural areas. The specific objectives are:
1. To assess the relationship between (a) the children’s morbidity and snacking habits; (b) the relationship morbidity of the children and food hygiene of the children and the vendors.
2. To assess whether there are differences between rural and urban regarding children’s morbidity, snacking habits, and food hygiene of the children and the vendors.
3. To analyze the knowledge, attitude and practice of school children, mothers, teachers and food vendors about nutrition and food safety.