Sept. 30 - Kids Will Eat Fruits and Vegetables at School – With a Little Help

Researchers at the University of Maryland recently announced initial data that shows school-based intervention efforts help kids buck a national trend by increasing their consumption of fruits and vegetables. To the researchers’ knowledge, these results are the first for Maryland and on the leading edge nationally and internationally.

Bonnie Braun, PhD, headed the team, which investigated the effects of school, family, and community environments on the food-related behavior of elementary schoolchildren. Braun is an associate professor in department of family science at the university’s school of public health.

The research was part of a series of studies under Project FRESH, a school-based nutrition education program designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, especially of products grown by Maryland producers, among elementary school children.

“Fruits and vegetables are a key contributor to children’s health,” says Braun. “Unfortunately, national reports indicate that children’s consumption of these foods normally decreases from kindergarten to fifth grade. Students from low-income families are particularly at risk of inadequate intake.” Many of these children are dependent on food served by the school for one third to two thirds of their daily food intake. However, even if schools increase fruits and vegetables on their cafeteria lines, children must be willing to eat them.

That’s why Braun and her team focused their research on schools where 50% or more of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. They investigated the relationship between exposure to fruits and vegetables, taste preference, and actual consumption among three groups of fourth-grade students in the Baltimore-Washington metro area. “Our hypothesis was that school-based interventions focused on increasing children’s preference for fruits and vegetables would be associated with an increase in consumption both in school and at home,” says Braun.

The three types of interventions involved teacher training with a tested curriculum and parent events, teacher’s use of the curriculum without events involving parents, and an University of Maryland Cooperative Extension educator teaching in student classrooms. All three approaches produced similar results, which supported the researchers’ hypothesis. They found that repeated exposure through taste testing to fruits and vegetables matters, and that even moderate interventions focused on repeated tasting make a difference.

Prior to the interventions, more than nine out of 10 students were not eating the recommended five fruits and vegetables a day; seven out of 10 ate fewer than three servings of fruits and vegetables daily; and of those, more than one half ate fewer than two servings.

After the interventions, six out of 10 students increased their taste for fruits and vegetables, and one half either maintained their higher-than-average intake or increased intake.

Source: University of Maryland, College Park

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