Related Experiment Videos
Patterns in children's fruit and vegetable consumption by meal and day of the week
T Baranowski1, M Smith, M D Hearn
1Department of Behavioral Sciences, Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Objective:
To assess differences in children's consumption of fruit and vegetables (F&V) by day of the week and meal of the day.
Design:
Baseline data from two school based nutrition education studies were combined for analysis.
Subjects/Setting:
2984 third grade students from 48 participating elementary schools in three school districts in the metropolitan Atlanta area.
Measures Of Outcome:
The frequency of consumption of F&V abstracted by trained registered dietitians from prompted 7-day food records. STATISTICAL-ANALYSES PERFORMED: Mixed model analysis with meals and days as terms, controlling for the within school correlation, gender and ethnic group.
Results:
F&V were most frequently consumed at weekday lunch, and second most frequently at dinner. Participation in school lunch accounted for a substantial proportion of F&Vs consumed at lunch. Few F&Vs were consumed at breakfast or snack.
Conclusions:
School lunch makes an important contribution to elementary school students' F&V consumption. Dietary change programs should target parents to increase F&V consumption at dinner, and target students for the meals over which they assert the most control: breakfast and snacks.