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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2022 Feb 22:10:790008.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.790008. eCollection 2022.

Design and Methods of a Participatory Healthy Eating Intervention for Indigenous Children: The FRESH Study

Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan  1 , Tori Taniguchi  1 , Alyson Haslam  2 , Mary B Williams  3 , Tara L Maudrie  4 , Cassandra J Nikolaus  5 , Marianna S Wetherill  6 , Tvli Jacob  1 , Charlotte V Love  7 , Susan Sisson  8
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Design and Methods of a Participatory Healthy Eating Intervention for Indigenous Children: The FRESH Study

Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Objective: To increase vegetable and fruit intake, reduce body mass index (BMI), and improve parental blood pressure among American Indian families.

Design: Randomized, wait-list controlled trial testing a multi-level (environmental, community, family, and individual) multi-component intervention with data collection at baseline and 6 months post-intervention.

Setting: Tribally owned and operated Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs in the Osage Nation in Oklahoma.

Participants: American Indian families (at least one adult and one child in a ECE program). A sample size of 168 per group will provide power to detect differences in fruit and vegetable intake.

Intervention: The 6-month intervention consisted of a (1) ECE-based nutrition and gardening curriculum; (2) nutrition education and food sovereignty curriculum for adults; and (3) ECE program menu modifications.

Main outcome measures: The primary outcome is increase in fruit and vegetable intake, assessed with a 24-h recall for adults and plate weight assessments for children. Secondary outcomes included objective measures of BMI among adults and children and blood pressure among adults.

Keywords: American Indian; Indigenous food sovereignty; Indigenous knowledge; community-based participatory research; early childhood intervention; gardening intervention; nutrition intervention; vegetable and fruit intake.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Ecological framework depicting multiple influences on what people eat [adapted from Story et al. (31)].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Study design for the Food Resource Equity and Sustainability for Health (FRESH) randomized, wait-list controlled trial.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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