Program evaluation of CHOICE: A point-of-purchase information intervention to improve youth choice of healthy meals in school

Introduction

The growing epidemic of childhood obesity calls for multiple strategies to address the eating habits of today's youth. Environmental strategies hold promise for allowing widespread adoption and impact. This paper presents an initial evaluation of CHOICE (Creating Healthy Opportunities and Initiatives in the Cafeteria for Everyone), a point of purchase information intervention that uses traffic light symbols and associated marketing, in an upper elementary school (grades 5-6) cafeteria.

Program Design

Under CHOICE, items served in the school cafeteria are assigned a red, yellow or green code by the district registered dietician based on the Virginia Governor's Nutrition Scorecard. Students are encouraged to use the information to select items that create a healthy meal (i.e. three greens and a red).

Program Evaluation

The initial evaluation of CHOICE will document the extent to which CHOICE improves school lunch selection. Student food choices at baseline, during and after the intervention are tracked by an id that is linked to demographic information. A repeated measures model will be used to determine and report changes in individual food selection resulting from the intervention.

Discussion

Evaluating purchase and sales data allows us to test the effectiveness of CHOICE. Because of its low implementation cost even a small improvement in the food selection of at-risk youth resulting from CHOICES has the potential to produce large aggregate gains, thus providing a cost-effective tool for fighting obesity.