Perceptions of School-Based Kitchen Garden Programs in Low-Income, African American Communities

Abstract

To strengthen the sustainability and potential impact of school-based kitchen garden programs, future intervention strategies should place specific emphasis on the themes that emerged from this study. School-based kitchen garden programs may be a promising strategy to positively influence the individual, social, and physical environmental factors that contribute to overweight and obesity in low-income, African American communities.

Health Literacy in Schools? A Systematic Review of Health-Related Interventions Aimed at Disadvantaged Adolescents

“…School nutrition practice and policy was also significantly improved in the intervention by Alaimo et al [62]. Finally, one intervention aimed to measure the students', teachers' and parents' perceptions of the intervention, and to identify attributes that were highly valued within [60]. Four key themes ((1) development of life skills, (2) food and health, (3) family and community, and (4) experiential and participatory learning environment) were identified, and all stakeholders positively appraised the intervention.…”

“…The year of publication ranged from 1996 [59] to 2020 [76], with the majority published in the last decade (n = 35). A total of 22 studies were randomised controlled trials (RCTs) [47,48,51,52,55,58,59,63,67,68,[70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78]82,85,86], ten employed pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental designs [49,53,62,[64][65][66]69,79,80,84], four employed a single group pretest-post-test designs [54,56,61,83], three were post-test qualitative evaluations [57,81,87], and the remaining two adopted cross-sectional designs [50,60]. All studies assessed the interventions using quantitative techniques, with the exception of five which employed mixed methods [49,54,69,…”

“…The largest group of interventions focused on PA and diet (n = 13) [49,55,[64][65][66][67][69][70][71]77,81,84,86], followed by PA (n = 8) [47,48,58,61,[73][74][75][76]80] and mental health (n = 7) [51,53,56,72,82,83,85]. The remainder targeted diet (n = 4) [54,60,62,78]; substance abuse (n = 2) [50,68]; PA, diet, substance abuse and mental health [59]; mental health and sleep [64]; PA, diet and substance abuse [52]; Sleep [57]; mental health and PA [87] and PA, diet and mental health [79]. Interventions were delivered by a wide range of people.…”

“…Many studies included providing the opportunity for shared decision making as part of the intervention [80][81][82]. Knapp et al [60] held interactive classes outside of the classroom (in the kitchen and garden). Vicary et al [68] used a life skills training programme to improve the adolescent's confidence and capabilities, specifically targeting decision making skills, refusal skills, media awareness and resistance skills in relation to substance abuse.…”

Healthy eating strategies for socioeconomically disadvantaged populations: a meta-ethnography

“… Income. In-depth interviews (n = 20), focus groups (n = 2), and participant observation (n = 3) 4 Knapp et al ( 2019 ) USA To examine the perceptions of a school-based kitchen garden program, identify program attributes that are most highly valued, and determine the perceived impact of the program on students. School-based kitchen garden program that offered interactive, garden- and kitchen-based curriculum classes during school hours and afterschool programming.…”