Meal-Specific Dietary Changes From Squires Quest! II: A Serious Video Game Intervention

Squire's Quest! II: Saving the Kingdom of Fivealot, an online video game, promotes fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption. An evaluation study varied the type of implementation intentions used during the goal-setting process (none, action, coping, or both action and coping plans). Participants who created action plans reported higher FV consumption 6 months after baseline. This study assessed changes by specific meal in that study.

A total of 400 fourth- and fifth-grade children completed 3 24-hour recalls at baseline and 6 months later. These were averaged to obtain FV intake. Analyses used repeated-measures ANCOVA.

There was a significant group by time effect for vegetables at 6 months (P = .01); Action (P = .01) and coping (P = .04) group participants reported higher vegetable intake at dinner. There were significant increases in fruit intake at breakfast (P = .009), lunch (P = .01), and snack (P < .001).

Setting meal-specific goals and action or coping plans may enable children to overcome barriers and consume FV.