Increased Classroom Consumption of Home-Provided Fruits and Vegetables for Normal and Overweight Children: Results of the Food Dudes Program in Italy

Abstract

Objective: To increase classroom consumption of home-provided fruits (F) and vegetables (V) in obese, overweight, and normal weight children.

Design: Consumption evaluated within and across the baseline phase and the end of the intervention and maintenance phases.

Setting: Three Italian primary schools.

Participants: The study involved 672 children (321 male and 329 female) aged 5-11 years. Body mass index measures were available for 461 children.

Intervention: Intervention schools received the Food Dudes (FD) program: 16 days of repeated taste exposure (40 g of F and 40 g of V), video modeling, and rewards-based techniques. The comparison school was only repeatedly exposed to FV.

Main outcome measure: Grams of FV brought from home and eaten.

Analysis: Chi-square, independent t test, repeated-measures ANOVA, and generalized estimating equation model.

Results: Intervention schools show a significant increase in home-provided F (P < .001) and V (P < .001) consumption both in overweight and non-overweight children. Approximately half of children in the intervention schools ate at least 1 portion of FV at the end of the intervention and maintenance phases.

Conclusions and implications: The increase in home-provided FV intake was similar in overweight and non-overweight children in the FD intervention schools compared with the comparison school. The effect of the FD program was higher at the end of the intervention phase than the end of the maintenance phase.

Keywords: child; childhood obesity; food habits; fruit; vegetables.