Abstract
Objective
To evaluate the Kids Café Program (KCP) nutrition education and assess its impact on children's diet quality and body
mass index (BMI) percentile.
Design
An experimental design consisting of pretest-posttest comparison groups using mixed
methods to evaluate a 6-session nutrition education intervention.
Setting
Four Boys and Girls Club sites
Participants
A total of 120 9- to 12-year-old children in the KCP (60 intervention and 60 comparison);
89% completed posttest evaluations.
Intervention
Trained KCP site staff taught the nutrition education curriculum at intervention sites.
Main Outcome Measures
Healthy Eating Index–2010 using 24-hour dietary recall data (primary) and BMI percentile
(secondary)
Analysis
Repeated-measures mixed-effects modeling
Results
Mean age of children was 10.2 years; mean BMI percentile was about 79; 95% were from
food-insecure households. The total Healthy Eating Index–2010 score for both groups
at baseline and posttest ranged from 50 to 60. At posttest, compared with baseline
scores, children from both groups scored significantly lower for total vegetables,
and greens and beans; the intervention group children had significantly higher sodium
scores. Process evaluation indicated that 60-minute lecture-based sessions were too
long after children were in school all day.
Conclusion
This pilot study suggests that the KCP nutrition education curriculum needs improvement.
Further research based on behavioral constructs is needed to refine the curriculum
to encourage healthier food choices among children and using the MyPlate and the 2015-2020
Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 03, 2018
Accepted:
November 14,
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.
