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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Allison Karpyn, PhD¹, Gary Foster, PhD², Bonnie Hallam, MA¹, and Tegan Hagy¹. (1) The Food Trust, 1201 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-568-0830, akarpyn@thefoodtrust.org, (2) Weight and Eating Disorders, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

BACKGROUND: According to the U.S. Surgeon General, the percent of overweight children has doubled since 1980, while the number of overweight adolescents has tripled. The Kindergarten Initiative works to engage parents, grandparents, teachers and children by creating institutions that teach our children healthy eating behaviors through classroom education, parent involvement and increased access to locally grown fruits and vegetables. METHODS: Two phases of research have been conducted. The first (2004-05) investigated changes in student measures of snack food preference (using observation), knowledge of food and farming, a process evaluation of the integration of nutrition education into a core, mandated curriculum, and impact on parent behavior in 4 pilot schools (n=121). The second phase (2005-2006) implements a randomized study across 6 schools to investigate change in student diet, BMI, knowledge of local food and nutrition, and reading achievement.RESULTS: Results of the pilot initiative show the integration of nutrition education into a mandated curriculum is feasible, with teachers (n=15)voluntarily documenting 68 hours of teacher integrated nutrition education per year. Furthermore, efforts to engage parents appear effective. Observational measures of change in student snack food preferences were found to be operationally problematic and yield no significant differences from baseline to post-test. However, significant gains in knowledge of nutritional concepts (p<.05) were found for students. CONCLUSION: Integrating nutrition education into a core, mandated curriculum is feasible, and effective in increasing student knowledge of healthy foods. Intervention at at the Kindergarten level is a promising method of effectively changing parent nutrition behaviors.

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