Time for Lunch: The Impact of Lunch Time Constraints on Child Eating Behaviors

July 18, 2022 updated by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Recent peer-reviewed observational evidence suggests that school children receive anywhere from 10-33 minutes of seated lunch time and that students with less time to eat discard higher amounts of milk, entrée (i.e. protein items), grains, and vegetables. This waste is a missed nutritional and food security opportunity and also negatively impacts the environment. The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact that lunch time constraints have on child food selection, consumption and waste behaviors using a crossover trial design, where the duration of seated lunch times are randomly allocated to be either 10 minutes or 20 minutes each day.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

39

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Illinois
      • Urbana, Illinois, United States, 61801
        • University of Illinois

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

7 years to 14 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Must be enrolled in local summer camp

Exclusion Criteria:

  • None

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Crossover Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Shortened lunch period
The amount of seated lunch time will be 10 minutes.
Behavioral: Lunch period length
We are randomly allocating a 10 minute or 20 period of seated lunch time.
Experimental: Longer lunch period
The amount of seated lunch time will be 20 minutes.
Behavioral: Lunch period length
We are randomly allocating a 10 minute or 20 period of seated lunch time.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Food item selection
Time Frame: Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp
The type and number of school meal components selected by students to eat for lunch.
Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp
Food item consumption
Time Frame: Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp
The weight of each school meal component that was consumed by each child during lunch. Each measured in grams.
Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp
Food item waste
Time Frame: Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp
The weight of each school meal component that was discarded by each child during lunch. Each measured in grams.
Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

June 3, 2019

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 28, 2019

Study Completion (Actual)

June 28, 2019

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 13, 2019

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 6, 2019

First Posted (Actual)

December 9, 2019

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 21, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 18, 2022

Last Verified

July 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 19412

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

Undecided

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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