Abstract
BackgroundThe FAN Social Marketing program was developed to improve dietary and physical activity habits of families with children in Ticino, Switzerland. The aim of this study was to examine if the effects of the program on children’s food intake differed by intervention group.MethodsEffects of the FAN program were tested through a Randomized Controlled Trial. The program lasted 8 weeks, during which participants received tailored communication about nutrition and physical activity. Families were randomly allocated to one of three groups, where the parent received the intervention by the Web (G1), Web + e-mail (G2) or Web + SMS (G3). Children in all groups received tailored print letters by post. Children’s food consumption was assessed at baseline and immediate post intervention using a 7-day food diary. Generalized linear mixed models with child as a random effect and with time, treatment group, and the time by treatment interaction as fixed effects were used to test the impact of the intervention.ResultsAnalyses were conducted with a sample of 608 children. After participating in FAN the marginal means of daily consumption of fruit changed from 0.95 to 1.12 in G1, from 0.82 to 0.94 in G2, and from 0.93 to 1.18 in G3. The margins of the daily consumption of sweets decreased in each group (1.67 to 1.56 in G1, 1.71 to 1.49 in G2, and 1.72 to 1.62 in G3). The change in vegetable consumption observed from pre to post intervention in G3 (from 1.13 to 1.21) was significantly different from that observed in G1 (from 1.21 to 1.17).ConclusionsA well-designed Web-based Social Marketing intervention complemented with print letters can help improve children’s consumption of water, fruit, soft drinks, and sweets. The use of SMS to support greater behavior change, in addition to Web-based communication, resulted only in a small significant positive change for vegetables, while the use of e-mail in addition to Web did not result in any significant difference.Trial registrationThe trial was retrospectively registered in the ISRCTN registry (ID ISRCTN48730279).
Highlights
The FAN Social Marketing program was developed to improve dietary and physical activity habits of families with children in Ticino, Switzerland
The baseline characteristics and food consumption of the children are presented in Tables 1 and 2, respectively
It was visited by a total of 195 parents with 261 children (G1) 72 parents with 95 children; Group 2 (G2)) 56 parents with 78 children; and Group 3 (G3)) 67 parents with 88 children)
Summary
The FAN Social Marketing program was developed to improve dietary and physical activity habits of families with children in Ticino, Switzerland. There is low adherence to nutritional guidelines in both adults and children in Switzerland. Swiss children do not adhere to the recommended guidelines with about 55% of girls and 40% of boys eating fruits and vegetables daily [4]. A study conducted in Canton Ticino, one of the 26 States in Switzerland, showed that less than 50% of the children were adherent to the national dietary guidelines [5]. Only 10.4% of children adhered to the recommendations. At the time of the study, compared to the rest of Switzerland, Canton Ticino presented the highest rates for overweight and obesity for adults (39.9%) and for children (23%) [10,11,12,13]. As dietary habits acquired during childhood persist into adult life and are leading factors for many health issues [14, 15], it is important to promote a healthy diet to children
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