Increasing Adoption of Fruits and Vegetables Into Family Diet

The Impact of Providing Choices for Fruits and Vegetable Access on Child Diet

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Diet, Healthy
• Intervention / Treatment: Dietary supplement: Weekly produce box and gift card

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 68
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Texas
    • Austin, Texas, United States, 78702
      • Booker T. Washington
    • Austin, Texas, United States, 78702
      • Chalmers Court
    • Austin, Texas, United States, 78704
      • Meadowbrook Elementary School
    • Austin, Texas, United States, 78723
      • Home Club
    • Austin, Texas, United States, 78753
      • Walnut Creek Elementary School
    • Austin, Texas, United States, 78758
      • NYOS Kramer
    • Elgin, Texas, United States, 78621
      • Elgin High School

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 4 years to 11 years (CHILD)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

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

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: DOUBLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Intervention group; 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.	Dietary supplement: Weekly produce box and gift card; Weekly box of produce (5-10 lbs) and $10.00 gift card to a local grocery store to purchase preferred produce. If progress on self-goals completed, an additional $10.00 card provided, weekly, for 3 weeks.
NO_INTERVENTION: Control Group; 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.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
School Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN) questionnaire elementary version	dietary recall measure for fruit and vegetables scale of 0-12 with higher scores equating to more vegetable consumption	24 hours

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Texas at Austin
• Collaborators: Boys and Girls Club of Austin

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Olsho LE, Klerman JA, Wilde PE, Bartlett S. Financial incentives increase fruit and vegetable intake among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants: a randomized controlled trial of the USDA Healthy Incentives Pilot. Am J Clin Nutr. 2016 Aug;104(2):423-35. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.115.129320. Epub 2016 Jun 22.
• Sharma SV, Markham C, Chow J, Ranjit N, Pomeroy M, Raber M. Evaluating a school-based fruit and vegetable co-op in low-income children: A quasi-experimental study. Prev Med. 2016 Oct;91:8-17. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2016.07.022. Epub 2016 Jul 25.
• Seligman HK, Smith M, Rosenmoss S, Marshall MB, Waxman E. Comprehensive Diabetes Self-Management Support From Food Banks: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Am J Public Health. 2018 Sep;108(9):1227-1234. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304528. Epub 2018 Jul 19.
• Kahlon MK, Aksan NS, Aubrey R, Barnes J, Clark N, Cowley-Morillo M, Engelman L, Guerra J, Guevara A, Marshall A, Hoelscher DM. Effect of Brief Produce Exposure and Unconstrained Grocery Gift Cards on Caregiver Influence on Diet of Elementary Age Children: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 May 2;5(5):e2212973. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.12973. Erratum In: JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Aug 1;5(8):e2231672.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): March 31, 2021
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): June 30, 2021
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): July 31, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: March 29, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 31, 2021
• First Posted (ACTUAL): April 1, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): September 29, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 27, 2021
• Last Verified: September 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 00000566

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No