P41 Yumbox: Bringing MyPlate to Preschoolers' Lunches

Abstract

Objective: To test whether Yumbox, a bento-style lunchbox with compartments labeled for the 5 meal components of USDA's MyPlate, has an effect on foods that caregivers packed for preschoolers' lunches. Use of Theory: Yumbox provides distinct compartments for recommended food components of USDA MyPlate, leveraging visibility principals of behavioral economics theory. Caregivers may be more likely to pack lunches that include more components of MyPlate due to visual cues present in Yumbox. Target Audience: Caregivers of preschoolers Program Description: Yumboxes were given to each child in a preschool ("Intervention School") (n = 30). Caregivers received a brief orientation on using Yumbox, as well as a list of suggestions for foods for each section. A similar preschool was selected for comparison of the content of students' lunches ("Control School"; n = 26). Contents of the students' lunches in both preschools were documented over a 3-day period by photographing lunches in both schools (N = 110 lunches). Photos were then analyzed to identify if a meal component was present or absent in the students' lunches. Evaluation Methods: All data were entered into SPSS for analysis. Descriptive statistics of food present for each component (vegetable, fruit, dairy, grain, protein), for both the Intervention and Control Schools were conducted. Chi-square analyses were also conducted to assess significant group differences in the presence of each food component. A comparison of the mean number of food components present on each student's trays were used to assess impact of the intervention. Results: This study found that the intervention group had had statistically significantly higher number of components (3.78 § 0.95) compared to the control group (1.89 § 0.93) t = -10.56; P < 0.0001. Chi-square tests found significant differences across all days for fruit, protein, and dairy, and significant differences on the first 2 days for vegetables. Conclusion:This study provides evidence that Yumbox may have a positive influence on the types of foods caregivers pack for children's lunches.

The Use of Portion Control Plates to Promote Healthy Eating and Diet-Related Outcomes: A Scoping Review

“…A total of 23 intervention studies were identified from the 22 peer-reviewed articles. Nine were randomised controlled trials (RCTs) (two with low [41,42] and seven with high risk of bias [43][44][45][46][47][48]), seven were quasi-experimental studies (three with low [49][50][51] and four with high risk of bias [52][53][54][55]), five were cross-sectional studies (one with low [56] and four with high risk of bias [57][58][59][60]), and two were qualitative studies with a high risk of bias [61,62].…”

“…Of the 23 intervention studies, 16 studies were conducted with adults [41][42][43][44]46,[48][49][50]52,53,56,[58][59][60][61] and 7 were conducted with children and adolescents [45,47,51,54,55,57,62]. The effect of the portion control plate was examined using 2D plate diagrams (n = 12) [44,49,50,52,53,[55][56][57][58][59][60]62] and using 3D portion plates (n = 11) [41][42][43][45][46][47][48]51,54,61]. An overview of eight types of portion control plates found in the grey literature is provided in Table 4.…”

“…Based on the JBI Critical Appraisal checklists, 6 studies were rated as low risk of bias [41,42,[49][50][51]56] and 17 studies were rated as high risk of bias [43,[45][46][47][48][52][53][54][55][57][58][59][60][61][62]. Most of the studies reviewed met the criteria relating to reliable outcome measurements, as well as appropriate intervention design and statistical analysis.…”

“…Three of seven studies did not involve parallel interventions except the portion control plate [54,57,62], while accompanying interventions were identified in four of seven studies and differed in their design [45,47,51,55]. Regarding intervention design, participants received nutrition-related education prior to the intervention in three studies: one only had a brief orientation [51], and the other two had formal education sessions or standard nutrition counselling on the use of the portion plate [55,57].…”

“…Six of seven studies quantitatively assessed the efficacy of portion control plates in improving nutrition knowledge, dietary behaviours, and weight status in children and adolescents by using five different portion control plates [45,47,51,54,55,57]. Of these, two studies were completed in a single education session [45,55], two studies assessing lunch quality were conducted over three days [51,54], one study over a longer period of time (two weeks to examine the change of home food environment) [57], and the remaining study was a weight-loss intervention program conducted over six months [47]. Two studies qualitatively examined the ease of use and preferences of plate characteristics [45,62].…”