Impact of teacher encouragement on children’s consumption and non-eating behaviour in a Wisconsin elementary school vegetable snack programme

Abstract

Objective: Schools participating in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Programme (FFVP) serve more fruit than vegetables and tend not to implement activities designed to increase consumption. This research examines the impact of teacher encouragement on consumption of raw vegetables served through a non-FFVP elementary school snack programme. Method: Twelve teachers and 217 children in Grades K–3 were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. One condition served as the control group (no encouragement), while the other two conditions represented intervention groups (moderate and high encouragement). Three vegetables were served eight times each with teachers in both intervention conditions providing encouragement for the first six servings of each vegetable. All encouragement was discontinued during the final two servings of each vegetable. Average consumption and non-eating behaviour were analysed using differences in means, ordinary least squares and logistic regression analysis. Results: Moderate and high teacher encouragement significantly increased children’s consumption of vegetables compared to the control group. Both encouragement conditions also significantly reduced the likelihood of non-eating behaviour. The positive encouragement impacts were found to persist in the short term even when teacher encouragement had ceased, especially for the high encouragement condition. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that relatively low-cost teacher encouragement can decrease non-eating behaviour and increase children’s consumption of vegetable snacks served in elementary schools. This suggests that schools participating in the FFVP could see benefits from serving more vegetables and implementing encouragement activities. Moreover, these results could be informative to non-FFVP schools in implementing their own vegetable snack programme.

Interventions based on sensory‐hedonic strategies and on nudging to facilitate vegetable and pulses consumption in the school environment

“…Reinforcement and incentives using prompts (Chinchanachokchai et al., 2022; Dave et al., 2015; Erjavec et al., 2021; Machado, Ritchie et al., 2020; Quinn et al., 2018; Song et al., 2016a; Hubbard et al., 2015; Hanks et al., 2013; Hendy et al., 2007; Hoffman et al., 2010; Perry et al., 2004; Taylor, Darby et al., 2013), using rewards (Hendy et al., 2007; Horne et al., 2009; McCormick et al., 2009; Perry et al., 2004; Presti et al., 2015; Taylor, Upton et al., 2013; Wardle et al., 2003, Taylor, Darby et al., 2013), using incentives (Hoffman et al., 2011; Hudgens et al., 2017; Joyner et al., 2017; Machado, Ritchie et al., 2020; McCormick et al., 2009; Wengreen et al., 2021, Ansu et al., 2021, Marcano‐Olivier et al., 2021), using marketing techniques such as characters, banners, and messages, using modeling (role and peer modeling) (Hoffman et al., 2010; Horne et al., 2009; Perry et al., 2004; Taylor, Upton et al., 2013; Hubbard et al., 2015; Birnbaum et al., 2002; Machado, Ritchie et al., 2020; Marcano‐Olivier et al., 2019, 2021; Presti et al., 2015); …”

“…Multicomponent interventions using prompts have reported positive effects in increasing vegetable intake (Hanks et al., 2013; Hendy et al., 2007; Hoffman et al., 2010; Machado, Ritchie et al., 2020; Perry et al., 2004; Song et al., 2016a), with one study reporting these effects regardless of children's weight status (Hendy et al., 2007). In particular, higher levels of encouragement were positively associated with a higher vegetable intake which continued for the short‐term (Chinchanachokchai et al., 2022). On the contrary, two multicomponent interventions did not find a significant effect in increasing vegetable selection and self‐reported consumption (Dave et al., 2015; Quinn et al., 2018; Taylor, Darby et al., 2013).…”

“…In the case of advertisements and prompts, the dose (Birnbaum et al., 2002; Chinchanachokchai et al., 2022) and degree of implementation (Dave et al., 2015) were reported as an important factor associated with their effectiveness. In particular for posters and messages, positive results came only after combining them with other strategies including educational campaigns and games (Joyner et al., 2017; McCormick et al., 2009), suggesting the incorporation of these elements for increasing vegetable selection and consumption.…”