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Research and Professional Brief
Garden-Based Nutrition Education Affects Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Sixth-Grade Adolescents

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Abstract

Schoolyard gardens are emerging as a nutrition education tool in academic settings. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of garden-based nutrition education on adolescents’ fruit and vegetable consumption using a nonequivalent control group design. Sixth-grade students (n=99) at three different elementary schools made up a control and two treatment groups. Students in the treatment groups participated in a 12-week nutrition education program, and one treatment group also participated in garden-based activities. Students in all three groups completed three 24-hour food-recall workbooks before and after the intervention. A repeated-measures analysis of variance showed that adolescents who participated in the garden-based nutrition intervention increased their servings of fruits and vegetables more than students in the two other groups. Significant increases were also found in vitamin A, vitamin C, and fiber intake. Although further research is needed, the results of this study seem to indicate the efficacy of using garden-based nutrition education to increase adolescents’ consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Section snippets

Methods

Subjects included 122 sixth-grade students at three similar elementary schools in southeast Idaho. The ages ranged from 10 to 13 years, with a mean age of 11.11 years. The sample populations at each school contained a similar representation of ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic traits. Selected schools were convenience samples. A nonequivalent control group design was used. A control school and one experimental school (experimental school 1) were randomly assigned, and a second experimental

Results and Discussion

Schoolyard gardening programs are springing up across the country. There are currently 1,100 projects in the registry for school garden projects at www.kidsgardening.com (21). There are also numerous Web sites devoted to encouraging and helping schools implement schoolyard gardening programs. French and Wechsler (22) examined various school-based interventions to promote fruit and vegetable consumption. They suggest that school gardens are a new direction in the school-based promotion of fruit

Conclusions

The results from this study illustrate the efficacy of using garden-based nutrition education when attempting to increase adolescents’ consumption of fruits and vegetables. The persistent annual increase in adolescent overweight/obesity must be addressed to meet the goals and objectives of Healthy People 2010 (2), as well as many other governmental initiatives, including the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (28), and to decrease the risk factors for many chronic diseases. It is heartening to

J. D. McAleese is patient advocate, Portneuf Medical Center, Pocatello, ID; at the time of the study, she was a graduate student in the Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences, Idaho State University, Pocatello.

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    J. D. McAleese is patient advocate, Portneuf Medical Center, Pocatello, ID; at the time of the study, she was a graduate student in the Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences, Idaho State University, Pocatello.

    L. L. Rankin is an associate professor, Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences, Idaho State University, Pocatello.

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