Impact of teacher encouragement on children’s consumption and non-eating behaviour in a Wisconsin elementary school vegetable snack programme

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21323768
AutoresSydney Chinchanachokchai (0000-0003-3967-5155, Department of Management and Marketing, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA), Eric M Jamelske (0000-0002-7824-3585, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, autor de correspondencia), Elliot Vernon (0000-0002-9094-3226, Seattle University), Erin Vernon (Seattle University)
Año2022
Volumen81
Número3
Páginas265-279
Fecha de publicación2022-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHealth Education Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0017-8969 • E-ISSN: 1748-8176
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00178969211073293
OpenAlexW4206986756
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas17

Objective: Schools participating in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Programme (FFVP) serve more fruit than vegetables and tend not to implement activities designed to increase consumption. This research examines the impact of teacher encouragement on consumption of raw vegetables served through a non-FFVP elementary school snack programme. Method: Twelve teachers and 217 children in Grades K–3 were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. One condition served as the control group (no encouragement), while the other two conditions represented intervention groups (moderate and high encouragement). Three vegetables were served eight times each with teachers in both intervention conditions providing encouragement for the first six servings of each vegetable. All encouragement was discontinued during the final two servings of each vegetable. Average consumption and non-eating behaviour were analysed using differences in means, ordinary least squares and logistic regression analysis. Results: Moderate and high teacher encouragement significantly increased children’s consumption of vegetables compared to the control group. Both encouragement conditions also significantly reduced the likelihood of non-eating behaviour. The positive encouragement impacts were found to persist in the short term even when teacher encouragement had ceased, especially for the high encouragement condition. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that relatively low-cost teacher encouragement can decrease non-eating behaviour and increase children’s consumption of vegetable snacks served in elementary schools. This suggests that schools participating in the FFVP could see benefits from serving more vegetables and implementing encouragement activities. Moreover, these results could be informative to non-FFVP schools in implementing their own vegetable snack programme

Consumption (sociology) · Healthy eating · Intervention (counseling) · Logistic regression · Physical activity · Social science · Sociology · Early Childhood Education and Development · Environmental Education and Sustainability · Medicine · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet · Psychology