Abstract
Objective
To determine the effectiveness of a parent health report on fruit and vegetable consumption
among preschoolers and kindergarteners.
Design
Pre-post open design trial and a randomized controlled trial.
Setting
A university-sponsored preschool and kindergarten.
Participants
A total of 63 parents of preschool and kindergarten students participated in the pre-post
open design trial and 65 parents participated in the randomized controlled trial.
Intervention
Parents in intervention groups were given a parent health report providing information
about their child's fruit and vegetable intake as well as recommendations for how
to increase their child's fruit and vegetable consumption.
Main Outcome Measure
Change in fruit and vegetable consumption.
Analysis
Latent growth curve modeling with Bayesian estimation.
Results
Vegetable consumption increased by 0.3 servings/d in the open trial and 0.65 servings/d
in the randomized trial. Fruit consumption did not increase significantly in either
study.
Conclusions and Implications
Results from both an open trial and a randomized controlled trial suggested that the
parent health report may be a beneficial tool to increase vegetable consumption in
preschoolers and kindergarteners. Increases in vegetable consumption can lead to the
establishment of lifelong habits of healthy vegetable intake and decrease risk for
chronic diseases.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 28, 2017
Accepted:
January 2,
2017
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: The authors' conflict of interest disclosures can be found online with this article on www.jneb.org.
Identification
Copyright
©2017 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.
