Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of the Cancer Society of Lower Saxony's school-based nutrition education programme "5-a-day for kids", designed to increase children's fruit and vegetable consumption. Intervention: the programme included three parts (each 45 minutes): education-based classroom session;…

Purpose/Objectives: Existing research has investigated the effects of using individual incentives and positive reinforcements to influence children to eat more fruits and vegetables for lunch and snack during school. This study explored using group-level incentives to motivate children in a Wisconsin elementary school to eat more fruits and…

The Active and Healthy School Program (AHS) can be used to alter the culture and environment of a school to help children make healthier choices. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of AHS to increase physical activity while decreasing total screen time, increase healthy food choices, and improve knowledge about physical…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to enable community members to discuss their perceptions of eating habits and physical activity in relation to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, and reveal facilitators and barriers to healthy eating behavior and physical activity engagement. Design/methodology/approach: Nine focus groups, which included six…

Objective: Increased action is needed to combat the growing epidemic of pediatric obesity. It is imperative that researchers investigate psychological and demographic variables that may be associated with pediatric obesity in order to formulate and implement more appropriate and effective interventions. The present study examined the univariate…

Purpose/Objectives: The new nutrition standards for the school meal programs implemented in 2012 align the school meal patterns with the US Dietary Guidelines for Americans, including more fruit, vegetable and whole grain offerings and minimum and maximum amount of calories per meal averaged over a week. The purpose of this study was to assess…

Purpose/Objectives: The United States Department of Agriculture initiated its Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) in 2002. This study investigates the impact of the FFVP on children's fruit and vegetable consumption. Methods: Participants were fourth- and fifth- graders from two program schools (n = 124) and two control schools (n = 134) in…

The authors present a program where students and family members were involved in a taste-testing to select the items to be planted in the school's garden at Stephenson Elementary. A simple rubric of facial recognition is used. Smiles for the favorites; frowns for the disqualifiers. With the help of the school's leadership team consisting…

Background: "NEEDs for Bones" (NFB), based on the Health Belief Model, is a 4-lesson osteoporosis-prevention curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds. This study examined the relationship between enjoyment of food tastings and interest in NFB. Methods:NFB was administered by teachers as part of standard practice and evaluated after the fourth…

Objective: This study tested the relationships among child executive function (EF), child-perceived parent fast food intake, and child self-reported subsequent consumption of high-calorie, low-nutrient (HCLN) food. Design: One year and 6-month longitudinal observation from a larger randomized controlled trial. Setting. Southern California…

The relevance of environmental attitudes is obvious and attitudes towards farm and companion animals and animal welfare in medical research are an important aspect of education. However, both have rarely been linked with each other, and animal attitudes are only sparsely represented within environmental education assessment instruments. Linking…

Objective: To evaluate the short-term outcome of the social marketing approach used in Project FIT, we developed a school- and community-based programme for promoting healthful eating and physical activity in kindergarten to 5th-grade children and their parents. Design: A 2-year quasi-experiment for children and two cross-sectional surveys for…

Background: Identifying lifestyle factors such as physical activity (PA) patterns and eating behaviors of children may be beneficial in implementing interventions in urban elementary schools. Purpose: To examine PA levels and self-efficacy (SE) in PA and health eating (HE) of third, fourth, and fifth graders in 3 low economic elementary schools in…

School-based childhood obesity prevention programs have grown in response to reductions in child physical activity (PA), increased sedentariness, poor diet, and soaring child obesity rates. Multiple systematic reviews indicate school-based obesity prevention/treatment interventions are effective, yet few studies have examined the school nurse role…

Background: In elementary grades, comprehensive health education curricula have demonstrated effectiveness in addressing singular health issues. The Michigan Model for Health (MMH) was implemented and evaluated to determine its impact on nutrition, physical fitness, and safety knowledge and skills. Methods: Schools (N = 52) were randomly assigned…