Background In April 2004 Hull City Council introduced free healthy school meals for all primary and special school pupils (approximately 20,500 children from 71 primary schools and 6 special schools) in an attempt to reduce health and education inequalities. The meals were prepared to meet the Caroline Walker Trust (CWT) nutritional guidelines for primary schools. This study was carried out to assess the nutritional content of the meals and children’s actual intake from school dinners in comparison to children’s nutritional intake from packed lunches. The study then aimed to assess how food intake at lunch time impacted upon food consumed for the remainder of the day. Methods Children were recruited onto the study from two schools in Hull. The schools were selected by the number of pupils on roll and the number of children eligible for free school meals. The first phase of research assessing lunch consumption was conducted with 147 children, aged 8 – 11 years. School meals and packed lunches were weighed and photographed before and after consumption to assess actual intakes. The second phase assessed total daily food and nutrient intakes in a small sample of 20 children. All assessments were carried out over five consecutive days. Results The food provided by the schools for lunch met the majority of the CWT nutritional guidelines, however children’s intake did not. Children who ate a hot school dinner consumed only the foods they liked from the school meals provided leading to a low energy and nutrient intake. Large differences, for example 367kcal in comparison to 760kcal, in nutritional intakes were found between those children who ate a hot school dinner and those who ate a packed lunch. Children who consumed a packed lunch consumed significantly (p less than 0.05) more energy, fat, saturated fat, non-milk extrinsic (NME) sugar and sodium than children who ate a hot school dinner, but with this consumed more micronutrients. However, neither of the groups of children met the CWT guidelines for lunch time micronutrient intakes. The food diary analysis revealed that those children who ate a hot school dinner went on to consume food high in energy, fat, saturated fat, NME sugar and sodium later in the day. The significant differences in nutrient intakes between the hot dinner and packed lunch groups at lunch time disappeared when total daily intakes were compared. Differences were found between the children’s nutritional intake from the two schools, which may be due to socio economic factors. Conclusion The free healthy school dinners were not having the desired effect of improving children’s nutritional intake, children chose to eat the foods they liked and left the rest. Children who ate a free healthy school dinner went on to consume foods high in energy, fat, NME sugar and sodium later in the day and overall did not have a lower intake of these macronutrients than those children who had a packed lunch.

It is the purpose of the present study to add to the growing source of information, so valuable to curriculum makers, by studying the relationship of certain background variables to the Negro girl's curriculum in foods. The background variables included in this study are age, siblings, residence, father's occupation, and mother's education.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University

A game with food and nutrition related pictures was developed to provide an opportunity for a classroom teacher to interview preschool children for assessment of nutrition knowledge concepts. Specifically, knowledge of vegetable concepts which included identification of the food, the food group, the source, preparation methods and use by the body was measured. The assessment was administered to five groups of children (ages two and one-half to five years) in preschools and child care centers in Reston, VA by high school early childhood education students. The assessment was designed to meet current criteria that assessment be teacher administered, provide useful information to the teacher, reflect the typical activities of children in the classroom and be one of a variety of assessments used. The assessment was successfully administered by the high school students working as teacher aides. The assessment gave teachers useful information about each class and individual children which could be used in curriculum planning. The assessment fit into the usual classroom activities, in this case, a games and manipulatives learning center. The assessment provided more in-depth information about children's knowledge than multiple choice tests used in previous research on nutrition knowledge, because the teachers recorded children's responses to open-ended questions. Children's responses indicated elementary understanding of food and nutrition concepts suggesting that classroom teachers need to make greater use of the variety of nutrition education materials available. / Master of Science

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / All participants of the Indiana Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infant and Children (WIC) receive supplemental foods, nutrition education, and health care referrals. The Indiana WIC program established an online nutrition education program to help eliminate barriers to participants who are unable to be physically present for their second nutrition education appointments. The aim of this study was to compare the participation of WIC participants enrolled in standard in-person appointments with WIC participants enrolled in the Online Nutrition Education (ONE) pilot program by assessing the completion of the ONE lessons and the cash value benefit usage at 3 months after participants’ acceptance into the WIC program. A quasi-experiment was performed using a time series comparison of WIC participant attendance at their in-person nutrition education appointment to participants completion of an online nutrition education lesson. A second comparison of the two groups observed the participants redemption of their cash value benefit on fruits and vegetables (CVB). The increase in participation from 2019 to 2020 was statistically significant (P=0.035). Analysis showed that there was a significant difference (P ≤ 0.001) between the 2019 and 2020 CVB mean redemption rates. This study provides evidence that WIC participants are more likely to maintain their participation when offered the addition of an online nutrition education appointment type.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: B, page: 3440. Adviser: Manabu T. Nakamura. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-128) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the effectiveness of three weight loss intervention methods on change in behavior and weight status among participants. Specifically, this study examined the differential effectiveness of intervention type on changing consumption of "red light foods," "yellow light foods," and "green light foods" from baseline to three months. This thesis also examined the differential effectiveness of intervention type on changing weight status of participants from baseline to three months. A total of 68 food logs with the corresponding participant anthropometric measurements were analyzed for this thesis. Results showed that participants in the ASPIRE group + phone had a significant change in red food consumption compared to that of the MOVE! group. A significant change in yellow food consumption was also found for ASPIRE group + phone compared to those of the ASPIRE phone only group. A relationship between weight status and intervention type was not found. This thesis shows that the Stoplight diet coupled with a small changes approach is beneficial for changing food choices leading to a decrease in caloric intake and potential weight loss.</p>

Thesis (M.S.)--Wisconsin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-62).

A nutrition education program for the third and fourth grade levels was developed within a sound educational structure, namely a systematic approach involving the five dimensions of motivation, concepts and generalizations, behavioral objectives, learning experiences and evaluation. To test the effectiveness of the nutrition education program, 117 children in two Vancouver schools participated in an experimental program. Fifty eight of these children were treated as two control groups, one group from each school. The other 59 children were treated as two experimental groups, one group in each school. Both the control and the experimental groups were pre- and post-tested using tests designed to evaluate the competency level of learning (Krathwohl et al., 1964; Bloom, 1965). The control groups did not receive any nutrition education. The experimental groups actively participated in nutrition education learning experiences for forty minutes, twice each week for six weeks. Evaluation proceeded during the week immediately before and immediately after the nutrition education program. The nutrition education program was found to improve significantly nutrition knowledge and comprehension for both grades. Although results of a parent questionnaire indicated that there had been significant improvement in nutrition attitudes at home, there was no general tendency toward improvement of dietary patterns reflected in the remaining tests. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This thesis has developed arprototypical system which provides information on dietary practices for those individuals interested in applying nutritional principles to their eating habits. The system has the potential to provide information which both accurately reflects nutritional guidelines and facilitates adoption of recommendations, by providing a self-explanatory statement of foods to consume and by limiting suggested changes in present food pattern. The prototypical computerized system developed has two major functions: (i), diet-assessment to appraise the acceptability of individual's dietary practices; and (ii), diet-planning to recommend modifications in the diets of those individuals not meeting specified limits. The focus of the system is a constrained-optimization algorithm that generates a revised food plan which both satisfies nutrient constraints, and minimizes the deviation of food items rand item groups from the original amount consumed by the client. Testing has been restricted to a descriptive evaluation of some of the algorithm's characteristics -- specifically, the design assumptions which define the acceptability of deviating from an original inventory, and the revised diets developed when these assumptions are modified. The results illustrate that altering these design assumptions produces marked variations in the revised diets with respect to observed parameters. Further modifications in the algorithm have been suggested. The explorative evaluation provides a foundation for more systematic evaluation of the validity of the algorithm. Recommendations for facilitating the further development and testing of the system are outlined. This thesis has shown that mathematical modeling provides an effective means of collating the vast amount of data required to develop cogent dietary recommendations which are nutritionally accurate, straightforward, and acceptable to the client. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate