Increasing Adoption of Fruits and Vegetables Into Family Diet

The University of Texas System (UT)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Diet, Healthy

Treatments: Dietary Supplement: Weekly produce box and gift card

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04827654

00000566

Details and patient eligibility

About

The investigators are interested in maximizing the consumption of fruits and vegetables (F&V) in elementary school children by increasing the access to F&V by providing them in the home environment via direct delivery (F&V bag & recipes) and a gift card to purchase preferred choices. This also decreases barriers to trying F&V and switching to a more F&V-focused diet, e.g., access, cost, knowledge of what to do with fruits and vegetables by their families in household diet, and a period of time to try and get used to more F&V in the diet without worrying about access and cost.

We hypothesize that at the end of 4 weeks, children in families that were given access to a F&V produce box with associated recipes, a gift card to purchase preferred choices, and a cooking incentive kit, consumed significantly better diets as measured with a diet composite score compared with children in families who did not receive increased F&V access.

Enrollment: 68 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 4 to 11 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Families must be participants in the Boys and Girls "Club on the Go" program. They could sign up to become a participant while we are recruiting.
2. Caregiver must be able to come to the same "Club on the Go" site every week.
3. At least one child in the family must be k-5 student.
4. Caregiver must be able to read and write in English or Spanish to answer assessments.

Exclusion criteria

1. Reference child with any medical condition in which they have to follow a specific diet.
2. Caregiver cannot read and write in English or Spanish.
3. Reference child not living with caregiver for majority of time (75% or greater).
4. Families that do not meet the inclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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68 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention group

Experimental group

Description:

Families in the intervention arm will receive a program of 4 weeks of access to fruit and vegetables through direct access (produce box) and a gift card to the grocery store for purchase of preferred produce.

Treatment:

Dietary Supplement: Weekly produce box and gift card

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Families in the control group will not receive any produce boxes or gift cards during the study period. At the end of the study period they will receive gift cards of equivalent amount.