Project Spraoi: Dietary Intake, Nutritional Knowledge, Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Health Markers of Irish Primary School Children

Abstract

Objective: Examine dietary intake (DI), anthropometric measures, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and nutritional knowledge (NK) of school children. Design: Cross-sectional study. Food Diary, NK questionnaire and 550m walk/run test were used to assess DI, NK and CRF respectively. Blood pressure (BP) was also taken and body mass index (BMI) and waist to height ratio (WHtR) were calculated. Setting: Two primary schools, Cork, Ireland. Subjects: Six (n = 49, age 5.9 ± 0.6 years) and ten (n = 52, age 9.8 ± 0.5 years) year olds. Results: Intakes of fruit and vegetables, fibre, calcium and iron were sub-optimal. Unhealthy snacks and saturated fat intakes were higher than recommended. A total of 24.4% of six year olds and 35.4% of ten year olds were classified as ‘fast’. Furthermore, 45.9% of six and ten year olds had high-normal BP and 27.9% had high BP. NK was negatively correlated with sugar intake (r = -0.321, p = 0.044) in ten year olds. WHtR was negatively correlated with servings of vegetables in six year olds (r = -0.377, p = 0.014). For ten year olds, there was a positive correlation between WHtR and run score (r = 0.350, p = 0.014) and BMI and run score (r = 0.482, p = 0.001). Conclusion: This study highlights, for the first time, DI, NK, CRF, BP and anthropometric data for Irish children and their potential combined effect on overall health. Study results suggest preventive initiatives are needed, in children as young as 6 years of age.

Identifying dietary patterns in Irish schoolchildren and their association with nutritional knowledge and markers of health before and after intervention

“…Project Spraoi is based on Project Energize, which has been implemented in New Zealand since 2004, and proven to be successful and cost-effective (62) . Initial findings from Project Spraoi research (28) indicate that the intervention has the potential to improve the health of children in Ireland, which supports recent policy (63) . Preventing children from becoming overweight and obese is the best approach and this is the focus of Project Spraoi, which aims to make healthy eating and increased PA a daily habit.…”

“…Whereas 56.9% of 10 year olds had normal BP, 27.5% had high-normal and 15.7% had high BP. Intakes of calcium, iron and fibre were below recommended levels and sodium and saturated fat intakes were also higher than recommended 28 . As previous research 28 found no statistical differences between genders, results for boys only and girls only were not included in this manuscript's statistical inference.…”

“…Descriptive statistics of baseline data has previously been reported 28 and revealed that 84.2% of children were normal weight, 10.9% were overweight, 4% were obese and 1% were underweight. A total of 69% of six year old children had normal BP, 18% had high-normal and 12% had high BP, respectively.…”

“…IP address: 44.224.250.200, on 01 Nov 2020 at 06:16:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114520004043 nutritional knowledge of Irish school children and has been described in detail elsewhere (27,28) . Briefly, 20 minute targeted nutrition and PA classes that included healthy lunchbox ideas, healthy food tasting sessions and education sessions on sugary beverages, takeaways, healthy breakfasts and food groups, as well as 'huff and puff' games and other PA-centred activities were delivered by an 'Energizer' from October 2014 to June 2016.…”

“…There is evidence that school-based obesity prevention interventions have some success in improving dietary intake by increasing fruit and vegetable consumption (21,22,23,24) and reducing fat intake (25,26) . An example of one such intervention in Ireland, Project Spraoi (27) , has shown success at increasing fibre and protein intake in children, whilst also improving nutritional knowledge, WHtR and BP (28) . Yet, to date, no Irish study has examined differences in nutritional knowledge and markers of health with respect to dietary patterns or investigated the effect of a school-based obesity prevention intervention on overall dietary patterns in children.…”