Kids Eating Fruits & Vegetables: A Norwegian Intervention - Essay Sample

Introduction

The Norwegian school fruits and vegetable intervention aimed at ensuring that the children meet the dietary needs of the two essential food portions. Through an all-round involvement of teachers, parents and the pupils, the one-year long program focused on making the children to consciously include vegetables in their diet as a self-help process for improving their general wellbeing as well as health status. The intervention eliminated some barriers to the inclusion of fruits and vegetables in the diet of the study cohort, but various setbacks resulted in its failure.

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Purpose of the Intervention and Its Rationale

The Fruits and Vegetables Make the Marks (FVMM) intervention was a deliberate initiative under the Norwegian School Fruit Programme conducted between 2001 and 2002. It was aimed to assess the viability of a school-based educational curriculum premised on the social cognitive theories that would significantly increase the overall fruit and vegetable intake among sixth-grade children in the country. It was a pilot-scale project intended for an upscale if the results proved decisive. The justification for the intervention was the fact that most children in Norway do not actively east enough fruits and vegetables to meet the national requirements of at least five portions of the two components a day. The idea for the intervention was not necessarily to get a perfect solution but to at least get a feasible option for at least increasing the children's fruit and vegetable intake (Bere, Veierod, Bjelland, & Klepp, 2006). Its premise was on the fact that various school-based interventions have demonstrated shown that increasing children's fruit and vegetable intake is possible, even though the effects, for the most part, have been small and sustainability unclear.

Design, Procedure, and Participants

The study had two segments done in schools within two separate counties; one involved active intervention while the other acted as the control. Schools for inclusion into the project were randomly selected. The schools willing to participate were taken, and sixth graders therein involved in the intervention. It was a rigorous process involving three stakeholders, teachers (home economics) who trained the children, the parents who provided enforcement at home, and the pupils who were the primary subjects of the project. The progress of the hybrid (home and school-based implementation) was assessed at three phases (baseline, 1st follow up, and 2nd follow up) using questionnaires. In each of the evaluations, the pupils were actively involved in recalling the fruits and vegetables they eat then fill them out in the survey. Appropriate inclusion-exclusion criteria for participants were employed, and ethical requirements upheld through authorization by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services.

Components of the Intervention

The intervention comprised of three parts. These included a Classroom component, Parental Involvement, and School Fruit Programme. Each of these components was strategically developed to reinforce each other and provide appropriate feedback for the intervention. The classroom component supported by a government funding of 6 Euros per pupil comprised of an adequately designed curriculum on matters of diet and food components that make a complete meal (Bere et al., 2006). A well-trained home economics teacher delivered the curriculum to the sixth graders in seven sessions distributed in seven months period from October 2001 to April 2002. It also involved practical exercises where they prepared meals predominated by vegetables and fruits intended to improve their sense of self-efficacy and taste preferences. The parental involvement aspect involved the use of newsletters to inform the parents to foster valuable communication with their children concerning fruits and vegetables. It was also intended to engage them in making sure that the children access vegetables and fruits. The project staff members also introduced the goals of the initiative to the parents during organized parents' meetings at the selected participant schools. The idea here was to have a complimentary home-based support system for the children to attain reinforced behavior towards more intake of fruits and vegetables. On the other hand, the school fruit program provided a basis for integrating the intervention. Parents and schools implementing the national fruit and vegetable subscription program were encouraged to embrace the project.

Types of Evaluation Employed

The execution process of the fruits and vegetable program was assessed exclusively using questionnaires, which is vital for attaining qualitative dietary information (Lytle & Fulkerson, 2002). The questionnaires were administered to participating pupils as well as the home economics teachers. The survey conducted to the pupils comprised of a 24-hour fruit and vegetable recall with questions assessing potential mediators of their fruit and vegetable intake and intervention evaluation items (Bere, Veierod, Bjelland & Klepp, 2006). On the other hand, the home economics teachers were given and responded to two separate evaluation questionnaires. As a common practice, the two surveys were administered in phases (middle and after the intervention). Therefore, it was easy to determine the implementation of the curriculum and an evaluation of its activities (Lytle & Fulkerson, 2002).

The questionnaire given to pupils was based on the social cognitive theory framework. It included the scales that measured the home accessibility of vegetables and fruits, modeling what the parents do, the conscious decision of the pupils to eat five portions of the fruits and vegetables a day, their preferences for the two food portions, self-efficacy to eat five portions a day as recommended and awareness of the five-a-day recommendation.

The Outcome of the Intervention (Success or Failure)

The intervention failed to achieve a substantial change in the pupil's dietary lifestyle. From the outset, the response focused on fostering eating behavior and the decision of the pupils, which by its nature requires a proper mediation of variables including preferences, awareness, accessibility, reinforcement, and modeling of positive trends within the environments. While the intervention made the pupils and parents aware of the need for adequate inclusion of fruits and vegetables into the diet, it failed to change the pupils' preferences for the two portions. In a dietary stream, the ultimate decision to actively take a particular proportion, and not the other is not a matter of awareness but preference. Ideally, inculcating sustainable dietary change requires a holistic approach that eliminates not only practical barriers and improves the cognitive elements but also an elaborate food environmental plan that creates necessary changes in the children's food environment (Roy, Kelly, Rangan, & Allman-Farinelli, 2015). A comprehensive intervention that targets cognitive influences, as well as environmental aspects, results in an improved preference for healthy foods, awareness, and self-efficacy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Norwegian school fruits and vegetable intervention was a noble initiative to improve the dietary decisions of school children by applying the framework of the cognitive, social theory. It involved the primary stakeholders, including teachers, parents, and pupils in an intricate web. Questionnaires, random sampling, social cognitive theory, and ethical dimensions were well included throughout the process. The sole dependence on the frameworks of cognitive-behavioral theory to inform the success resulted in its failure. The cognitive-behavioral theory does not result in a complete behavioral change but requires complementary methods such as an environmental approach for influencing preferences, accessibility, intention, and self-efficacy, which are essential in attaining sustained changes in dietary behavior.

References

Bere E., Veierod, M. B., Bjelland M., & Klepp K. I. (2006). Outcome and process evaluation ofa Norwegian school-randomized fruit and vegetable intervention: Fruits and Vegetables Make the Marks (FVMM). Health Education Research, 21 (2) 258-267. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyh062.

Lytle, L. A., & Fulkerson, J. A. (2002). Assessing the dietary environment: examples fromschool-based nutrition interventions. Public Health Nutrition, 5(6a), 893-899. Doi: 10.1079/PHN2002384.

Roy, R., Kelly, B., Rangan, A., & Allman-Farinelli, M. (2015). Food environment interventions to improve the dietary behaviour of young adults in tertiaryeducation settings: a systematic literature review. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 115(10), 1647-1681. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2015.06.380.