Can we change eating patterns in our children? Direct and indirect effects of the Food dudes programme

Fruits and vegetables are thought to be the pillars of an healthy diet and that could counteract child obesity, though there’s no evidence that increase in their consumption displace junk food in children dieting. Previous researches in UK and Ireland showed that the Food Dudes program is effective in increasing long-term children’s fruit and vegetable consumption. To test the hypothesis that the benefits of this program go beyond changing fruit and vegetables consumption we evaluated its effectiveness on a number of dietary measures in a long-term (one year) comparison study in Italy. Children attending two elementary schools in Milan were randomly assigned to intervention or control conditions. During 16 days children watched motivational videos of peers eating fruit and vegetables, and received small rewards for eating 1 portion (40 g each) of both them. In the control schools only the two portions of fruit and vegetable were offered during the same period. Additional material was sent at home to help parents reinforcing and maintaining the eating behavior acquired at school. We will present data relative to short term follow-ups which show a statistically significant difference (p < 0,001) relative to baseline in spontaneous consumption of fruit an vegetable in the experimental, but not in the control, schools. In addition general changes in the type of food that children were bringing at school from home for mid-morning break time resulted from the program and a significant (p<0,05) decrease in lipids and sodium and increase in fiber consumption was observed in the experimental but not in the control group.