Go Wild with Fruits and Veggies: Engaging Children in Nutrition Education and Physical Activity with Animal Characters

Abstract

The Go Wild with Fruits and Veggies! curriculum incorporates wild animal characters to motivate 3rd-5th grade children to increase fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity. Positive findings from a rural setting regarding a self-reported increase in intake of vegetables (n=1,285) were verified by more intensive evaluation of vegetable intake in an urban setting (n=140) that compared treatment and control groups. No differences in changes in physical activity were noted between groups. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the curriculum based on the use of animal characters to role model positive behaviors and different evaluation methods to corroborate findings.