Ethnic differences in 1-year follow-up effect of the Dutch Schoolgruiten Project – promoting fruit and vegetable consumption among primary-school children

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effect of a primary school-based intervention providing free fruit and vegetables (F&V), separately for children of Dutch and of nonWestern ethnicity. Setting: Primary schools in two regions (west and east) in The Netherlands. Design and methods: Participating schoolchildren and their parents completed questionnaires at baseline and 1 year later, including questions on usual F&V intake, potential determinants and general demographics. Primary outcomes were the usual fruit intake and the usual vegetable intake as assessed by parentand child self-reported food frequency measures. Secondary outcome measures were child-or parent-reported taste preference, knowledge of daily recommendations, availability, and accessibility for fruit intake. Multilevel regression analyses were used to assess differences at follow-up adjusted for baseline values between the control and intervention group using both child and parent reports. Subjects: Five hundred and sixty-five children of Dutch ethnicity and 388 children of non-Western ethnicity (mean age 9.9 years at baseline) and their parents. Results: Children of non-Western ethnicity in the intervention group reported a significantly higher vegetable intake (difference 5 20.7 g day -1 , 95% confidence interval (CI) 5 7.6-33.7). A significant positive intervention effect was also found for fruit intake for children of Dutch ethnicity (difference 5 0.23 pieces day -1 , 95% CI 5 0.07-0.39). No significant effects in intake were observed based on parent reports. Significant positive intervention effects were also found for perceived accessibility among children of non-Western ethnicity, as well as for parentreported taste preference of their child among children of non-Western ethnicity and boys of Dutch ethnicity. Conclusion: Providing children with free F&V had some positive effects on childreported intakes and important correlates of intakes.

Relación Entre Prácticas Alimentarias Reportadas Por Niños Chilenos Y Preferencias De Los Padres Para Su Consumo

“…These results on food consumption reported by the Chilean children were generally similar to previous studies from other countries that have reported on dietary consumption in 8 to 13 year olds, [12][13][14] although children from this study reported a higher frequency of consumption of produce [8,[15][16][17][18] than some of the previous studies and a slightly higher consumption of snacks and sweets [18] than one previous study. Separating out green and nongreen vegetables in the Chile questionnaire might have increased total vegetable consumption reported by the study children.…”

Long-term effects of the Dutch Schoolgruiten Project – promoting fruit and vegetable consumption among primary-school children

“…An explanation could be that there were relatively more children with a non-Western ethnicity in the intervention group compared with the control group. Tak et al (1) concluded elsewhere about this project that children with non-Western ethnicity reported higher vegetable consumption than children with Dutch ethnicity. Therefore, we adjusted all analyses for baseline differences to solve this problem.…”

Process evaluation of a cluster randomised controlled trial of a school-based fruit and vegetable intervention: Project Tomato

“…The components designed and used in this programme are similar to those used in other multi-component interventions which have been shown to be effective (5,10,14,17,19,22) . However, implementation rate is a vital component in the success of these studies.…”

“…Process evaluations are used to improve the understanding of successful or unsuccessful health interventions; to identify the key components that make an intervention successful, for boys, girls or both; and to determine which environments/conditions lead to these particular components facilitating a successful outcome (21,22) . Two terms commonly used in process evaluations and applied to the present study are implementation (9,(11)(12)(13)15) , meaning to what extent the intervention or intervention items were used by the intended audience; and appreciation (5,10,16,17,19,23) , a rating of how much the participants liked the intervention or intervention items (22) . However, a vital component of process measures is to identify possible mediating variables.…”