Nudging for Behavior Change in School Cafeterias

The Ohio State University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Behavior, Child; Food Selection

Treatments: Behavioral: Basic School Lunchroom Nudges

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04156542

2019B0480 (Other Identifier)

2016B0004

62140-10509 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The main purpose of this research is to look at a school lunchroom intervention that is known to improve fruit, vegetable, and milk consumption and see how it changes in the long run and if it affects the child's behavior permanently. The intervention will include the giving the vegetables descriptive names, moving the fruit to right next to the register and in attractive bowls, and increasing the amount of white milk served by 10%. The main forms of analyzing these results are through food preparation records, lunch sales records, and tray waste records. The first focus of this study is to see if there is a specific point in an intervention when improvement stops and therefore the intervention needs to be updated. This procedure involves looking at five similar middle schools with this same intervention over a 15 week period. The time of intervention implementation will vary by three week intervals, so the first will start the first week of school, the next school will start after three weeks of school, the next will start after six weeks of school, and the next will start after nine weeks of school, and the last will be a control school where there will be no intervention implementation. These intervals will help eliminate bias dealing with the beginning of the year excitement and seasonal effects. Food preparation records and lunch sales records will be collected from the school for the 15 week period. Tray waste will be recorded by having 200 randomly selected trays measured and collected twice a week over the 15 week period. This focus will help schools manage when they need to change their intervention so that improvements will not stop. The second focus of this study is to see if the children's improvement is kept when the intervention has stopped. This procedure will involve looking at a similar school to the other 5 schools. But unlike the other schools, this one will have the first 5 weeks without the intervention, then 5 weeks with the intervention, and then another 5 weeks without the intervention. Food preparation records and lunch sales records will be collected from the school for the 15 week period. Tray waste will be recorded by having 200 randomly selected trays measured and collected twice a week over the 15 week period. This second focus will help identify how effective this intervention is in permanently changing dietary habits.

Enrollment: 3,000 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 10 to 15 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• This research focused on food choices of middle school students, grades 6-8, which generally range in ages 11-14. In addition, since we are interested in learning about the types of cafeteria foods children select and what they throw away, we focus on students who receive a school lunch meal.

Exclusion criteria

• We exclude students who do not receive a school lunch meal.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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3,000 participants in 6 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

In this school, we collected data throughout the entire study without implementing any intervention.

5-week Intervention with Post-intervention Data Collection

Experimental group

Description:

In this school, we collected baseline data for 5 weeks, implemented the intervention for five weeks, then removed the intervention and collected post-intervention data for five weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Basic School Lunchroom Nudges

Implement intervention for 15 weeks

Experimental group

Description:

In this school, we implemented the intervention on January 11, 2016, the day the study began.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Basic School Lunchroom Nudges

Implement intervention for 12 weeks

Experimental group

Description:

In this school, we collected baseline data for three weeks and then implemented the intervention for the remaining twelve weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Basic School Lunchroom Nudges

Implement intervention for 9 weeks

Experimental group

Description:

In this school, we collected baseline data for six weeks and then implemented the intervention for the remaining nine weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Basic School Lunchroom Nudges

Implement intervention for 6 weeks

Experimental group

Description:

In this school, we collected baseline data for nine weeks and then implemented the intervention for the remaining six weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Basic School Lunchroom Nudges