Increasing the Variety of Vegetables and Fruits Served to Preschool Children at a Snack

The Pennsylvania State University (PENNSTATE)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Obesity; Feeding Behaviors

Treatments: Other: Pineapple snack; Other: Pepper snack; Other: Fruit variety snack; Other: Peach snack; Other: Apple snack; Other: Cucumber snack; Other: Vegetable variety snack; Other: Tomato snack

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT01557218

ChildFood101

R01DK082580 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Intake of vegetables and fruits in preschool children is less than recommended amounts. Although offering a variety of foods has been shown to increase intake, this effect has not been well studied for low-energy-dense foods. The purpose of this study was to test whether increasing the variety of vegetables and fruits served to preschool children affected the amount eaten. The hypotheses were that increasing the variety of vegetables and fruits would increase both the amount selected and the amount eaten.

Enrollment: 61 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 6 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• attenders at the relevant child care center

Exclusion criteria

• allergy or sensitivity to any test food

Trial design

61 participants in 8 patient groups

Cucumber

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Cucumber snack

Pepper

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Pepper snack

Tomato

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Tomato snack

Vegetable variety

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Vegetable variety snack

Apple

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Apple snack

Peach

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Peach snack

Pineapple

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Pineapple snack

Fruit variety

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Fruit variety snack