Impact of a Gardening and Physical Activity Intervention in Title 1 Schools: The TGEG Study

Abstract

Background: The purpose of the Texas!Grow!Eat!Go! (TGEG) study was to assess individual and combined effects of schoolbased gardening and physical activity (PA) interventions on children's eating and PA behaviors and obesity status. Methods: Using a 2 • 2 design, 28 low-income schools in Texas were randomized to 1 of 4 conditions: (1) School Garden intervention (Learn!Grow!Eat!Go! [LGEG]), (2) PA intervention (Walk Across Texas [WAT!]), (3) both Garden and PA intervention (Combined), or (4) neither Garden nor PA intervention (Control). Participants included 1326 third grade students and parents (42% Hispanic; 78% free/reduced lunch). Student and parent data were collected at the beginning and end of the school year. Two different sets of analyses measuring pre-post changes in outcomes within and across conditions were estimated by factorial ANOVAs using mixed models adjusted for demographics. Results: Main effect analyses indicate that relative to children at schools that did not receive LGEG, children at schools that received LGEG, either individually or in combination with WAT!, showed significant increases in Nutrition knowledge, Vegetable preference, and Vegetable tasted (p < 0.001 in all cases). Within-group analyses show that compared to Comparison, children in the WAT! group significantly increased in the amount of time parents and children were active together (p = 0.038). In addition, children in LGEG and WAT! schools significantly decreased BMI percentile (p = 0.042, p = 0.039, respectively), relative to children in Comparison schools. Conclusions: Both the garden and PA interventions independently produced significant changes related to healthy lifestyle behaviors. However, combining the two interventions did not show greater impact than the single interventions, underscoring the need for more research to determine how to better implement comprehensive interventions at schools.

Is School Gardening Combined with Physical Activity Intervention Effective for Improving Childhood Obesity? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…The results showed that there was no significant difference in overweight and obesity intervals between the intervention and control group ( p = 0.8), and subjects’ vegetable intake, intake motivation, and preference in SGA combined with the PA group and the SGA group were significantly improved compared with the control group ( p = 0.3). Alexandra et al [ 55 ] used the same intervention methods as Evans’ [ 54 ] to test the accuracy of the research results. After 24 weeks of intervention, they found that vegetable preference in the SGA combined with PA group, as well as in the SGA group, was significantly improved compared to the control group ( p = 0.013 and p = 0.001, respectively), especially in regard to vegetable taste ( p = 0.000 and p = 0.000, respectively) and nutritional knowledge ( p = 0.033, p = 0.001 respectively)”.…”

“…Still, these studies were included in this study for meta-analysis. However, the only two studies using SGA combined with PA as the intervention method have included FVs and other obesity-related outcomes [ 54 , 55 ], which were not unified with those outcomes in the other 12 studies. Thus, they can only be included in this study for SR. Our study shows that SGA and SGA combined with PA can effectively increase children’s FVs and improve their fruit and vegetable knowledge, intake motivation, and intake preference.…”

“…However, this combination of SGA and PA is an innovation. On this basis, Alexandra et al [ 55 ] did their study with the same intervention method. Additionally, the results showed that both the SGA group and SGA combined with the PA group effectively improved children’s vegetable-related outcomes.…”

Impact of a School-Based Gardening, Cooking, Nutrition Intervention on Diet Intake and Quality: The TX Sprouts Randomized Controlled Trial

“…A longitudinal study of US elementary schools between 2006 and 2014 found that the prevalence of gardens increased from 11.9% in 2006–2007 to 31.2% in 2013–2014 [ 10 ]. As school garden advocates push for more gardens in schools, they often cite the wealth of direct and indirect benefits that school gardens can have on students, including academic performance, psychosocial factors, dietary intake, mental health, obesity risk factors, and physical activity [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. One of the most commonly reported benefits is an increase in fruit and vegetable intake.…”

“…This limits the ability to determine whether causality exists between changes in dietary behaviors and garden-based interventions. The few existing randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been limited by short duration, intervention intensity and fidelity of implementation, and methods used to assess overall dietary or vegetable intake (e.g., food frequency questionnaires) [ 14 , 18 , 23 , 24 ].…”