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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2018 Feb 1:121:249-262.
doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2017.10.033. Epub 2017 Oct 25.

Parent packs, child eats: Surprising results of Lunch is in the Bag's efficacy trial

Cindy Roberts-Gray  1 , Nalini Ranjit  2 , Sara J Sweitzer  3 , Courtney E Byrd-Williams  4 , Maria Jose Romo-Palafox  5 , Margaret E Briley  6 , Deanna M Hoelscher  7
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Parent packs, child eats: Surprising results of Lunch is in the Bag's efficacy trial

Cindy Roberts-Gray et al. Appetite. .

Abstract

Early care and education (ECE) centers that require lunch brought from home provide an uncluttered view of parent-child dietary interactions in early childhood. Children's eating from parent-provided bag lunches was observed at 30 ECE centers in Texas, with 15 randomly assigned to the Lunch is in the Bag intervention to improve the lunch meal and 15 to a wait-list control condition. Study participants were parent and child aged 3-5 years (N = 633 dyads). Data were collected at baseline (pre-intervention) and follow-ups at weeks 6 (post-intervention), 22 (pre-booster), and 28 (post-booster). Changes effected in the children's lunch eating-e.g., increase of 14 percent in prevalence of children eating vegetables (SE = 5, P = 0.0063)-reciprocated changes in parent lunch-packing. Irrespective of intervention, however, the children consumed one-half to two-thirds of the amounts of whatever foods the parents packed, and the eat-to-pack ratio did not change across time. Thus, children's lunch eating at the ECE centers appeared to be regulated by perceptual cues of food availability rather than food preferences or internal cues of hunger and satiety.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic of the intervention logic model with an overlay denoting trial results reported elsewhere that provide context for evaluating child food intake from the lunch bag
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percent of children eating any amount of the food compared to percent of parents packing any amount of the food – Data displayed for the Intervention Condition. Results for which the time by treatment interaction was significant (P<0.05) are underlined. Results that favored the control group are marked
Figure 3
Figure 3
Numbers of servings of food parents packed and numbers of servings of food eaten by the children – Outcomes for which the time by treatment interaction term was significant (P<.0.05) are marked with arrows for the group that benefited (baseline=T0, 6-week follow-up=T6, 22-week follow-up=T22, and 28-week follow-up=T28)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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