Fruit and vegetable intake and taste preference concordance between low-income 4th graders and their parents

Objective: To explore over a 12 month period similarities and differences in fruit and vegetable (FV) intake and taste preferences among low-income fourth grade children and their parents. Design, Setting and Participants: A school-based cohort study of 32 low-income fourth grade student and their parents. This study is part of a larger investigation examining influences of school and family influences. Intervention: Students participated in classroom-centered, ten lesson nutrition education. Parental participation in two school FV-focused events was optional. Outcome Measures and Analysis: Daily FV intake and preference scores. Frequency distributions and means of all variables, Chi-squared and correlation tests. Results: At Time One, very little concordance between parent and child on FV intake or preference. At baseline, 84.4% of students and 78.1% of parents reported eating vegetables on the previous day (p<0.01). Among the students (90.6%) and parents (59.4%) reported eating fruit (p<0.05). For students and parents, Time 1 and Time 2 FV intakes did not change. Between Time One and Time Two (12 months) most parents (73.4%) did not change their FV intake. Of the 9.7% of students who increased their FV intake, none of their parents changed their FV. Over 50% of both students and parents increased their FV preference scores. Student FV preference scores at Time One were positively correlated with Time Two parent FV preference scores (r=0.40, p<0.05). Conclusions: School-based interventions alone may not be sufficient to impact parent FV intake and preference. Future studies should increase the sample size and consider a parent education component.