Date of Award

10-30-2020

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.H.K.

Department

Kinesiology

Keywords

family, fruit, home, nutrition, school, vegetable

Supervisor

Sarah J. Woodruff

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

Children have been cited as important influencers of family nutrition and, therefore, suggested to have the capacity to act as agents of change in the household and influence family food consumption. Furthermore, previous research has provided evidence of take-home effects in school-based nutrition interventions. Therefore, the purpose of this randomized control trial was to examine whether implementation of a centrally-procured school food program would produce changes in children’s home food environment, including fruit and/or vegetable availability and parental modelling of fruit and/or vegetable consumption. Findings of this study indicated that children’s fruit and vegetable consumption predicted parents’ fruit and vegetable consumption (p < .001), thereby strengthening the argument that children possess the capacity to influence home nutrition. The intervention did not produce take-home effects on children’s home availability of fruit (p = .52) and vegetables (p = .67) or parental modelling of fruit (p = .26) and vegetable consumption (p = .78), findings which may be related to the fact that only food provisions were given. Future school-based nutrition interventions are recommended to be multi-component (e.g., experiential learning, parent involvement) and may encourage nutrition leadership opportunities for children in the home context.

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