Abstract
(1) Background: Pediatric obesity continues to be a major public health issue. Poor food selection in the school cafeteria is a risk factor. Chocolate or strawberry flavored milk is favored by the majority of elementary school students. Previous health promotion efforts have led to increased selection of plain milk, but may compromise total milk purchased. In our study, we examined the effectiveness of small prizes as incentives to improve healthy food and beverage selection by elementary school students; (2) Methods: In a small Midwestern school district, small prizes were given to elementary school students who selected a “Power Plate” (PP), the healthful combination of a plain milk, a fruit, a vegetable and an entrée with whole grain over two academic school years; (3) Results: PP selection increased from 0.05 per student to 0.19, a 271% increase (p < 0.001). All healthful foods had increased selection with plain milk having the greatest increase, 0.098 per student to 0.255, a 159% increase (p < 0.001); (4) Total milk purchased increased modestly from 0.916 to 0.956 per student (p = 0.000331). Conclusion: Giving small prizes as a reward for healthful food selection substantially improves healthful food selection and the effect is sustainable over two academic years.
Highlights
Pediatric obesity continues to be a major worldwide health problem [1,2]
This type of intervention was further explored by List and Samek who demonstrated that when small prizes were offered to school aged children in separate interventions, plain milk selection increased from 16% to 40% and a more healthful snack from 17% to 75% of students [15,16]
There were favorable increases reported for the Power Plate” (PP) (271%), plain milk (159%), fruits (18%), and vegetables (9%)
Summary
Pediatric obesity continues to be a major worldwide health problem [1,2]. Poor food selection such as choosing flavored milk or not selecting fruits and vegetables in the cafeteria by elementary school students is a risk factor for obesity [3]. 80% if given an incentive [14] This type of intervention was further explored by List and Samek who demonstrated that when small prizes were offered to school aged children in separate interventions, plain milk selection increased from 16% to 40% and a more healthful snack from 17% to 75% of students [15,16]. While children still selected food items separately, they received a small prize for selecting the PP combination of a fruit, a vegetable, an entrée with whole grain and plain milk on PP days. The work of other investigators and our group show that emoticon labelling and small prizes as incentives can be used to improved healthful food purchase by elementary school age children. With our current study we describe using emoticons and small prizes on larger scale over two academic years in an ethnically diverse school system
Published Version (Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have