The Green (Growing Right: Eating Eco-Friendly and Nutritious) Project

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童饮食质量差会导致肥胖、慢性病和生活质量下降。许多努力都集中在学校提供的食物上。但是小学生们经常带零食和午餐。很少有人注意改善从家里带来的食物的营养成分。拟议的干预措施，绿色（成长的权利：吃生态友好和营养）项目利用健康饮食和生态友好行为之间的自然协同作用，以解决从家里带到学校的食物质量。我们新颖的，以学校为基础的宣传活动将结合联合收割机的信息，营养和生态友好的食品质量。我们的目标人群是马萨诸塞州东部的三年级和四年级学生及其照顾者。我们的中心假设是，在一个学年结束时，接受健康饮食和生态友好信息相结合的运动的儿童将在饮食质量和从家里带来的零食和午餐的生态友好性方面表现出更大的改善，而不是那些只接受健康饮食信息的儿童或对照组的儿童。将在对目标人口进行定性研究的基础上，开展以理论为基础的多渠道宣传运动。在这项运动中，学校将被随机分配到三个条件：（1）健康饮食和环保信息;（2）健康饮食信息;或（3）作为对照后延迟健康饮食环保信息。主要结果是带到学校的水果和蔬菜的数量发生了变化。次要结果将包括含糖饮料和加工过的能量密集型食品的数量变化，以及与从家里带来的食物相关的垃圾重量。将使用数码摄影对这些结局进行基线和结局评估。在绿色项目实施后，RE-AIM框架将用于修改干预措施，然后将其分发给延迟干预组。这一设计将提供一个机会来测试复制的可行性。如果成功的话，这种新的方法，利用健康饮食和环保信息之间的协同作用，可以扩展到美国各地的小学，并适应其他人群。此外，该策略可能会扩展到其他影响个人健康的行为，这些行为可能与生态友好行为有关。 公共卫生相关性：美国儿童饮食质量差导致肥胖、慢性病和生活质量下降。我们创新的以学校为基础的营养宣传活动，结合了健康饮食和生态友好行为的协同作用，解决了三年级和四年级学生从家里带到学校的食物质量。如果成功，我们将采用的宣传战略将有助于改善学童的饮食质量，从而提高他们的生活质量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Poor diet quality in children contributes to obesity, chronic disease, and diminished quality of life. Many efforts have focused on foods provided in schools. But elementary school children regularly bring snacks and lunches. Little attention has been directed toward improving the nutrient profiles of foods brought from home. The proposed intervention, The GREEN (Growing Right: Eating Eco-friendly and Nutritious) Project takes advantage of a natural synergy between healthy eating and eco-friendly behaviors to address the quality of foods brought to school from home. Our novel, school-based communications campaign will combine messages about the nutritional and eco-friendly qualities of foods. Our target population is third and fourth graders and their caregivers in Eastern Massachusetts. Our central hypothesis is that at the end of one school year, children who receive a campaign with combined healthy eating and eco-friendly messages will show greater improvement in diet quality and eco-friendliness of snacks and lunches brought from home than those who receive healthy eating communications alone or those in a control group. The theory-based multi-channel communications campaign will be developed on the basis of qualitative research with the target population. For the campaign, schools will be randomized to three conditions to receive: (1) healthy eating and eco-friendly messages; (2) healthy eating only messages; or (3) delayed healthy eating eco-friendly messages after serving as controls. The primary outcome is change in the number of servings of fruits and vegetables brought to school. Secondary outcomes will include changes in the quantity of sugar-sweetened beverages and processed, energy-dense foods, as well as the weight of trash associated with foods brought from home. Baseline and outcome assessments of these outcomes will be made using digital photography. After the GREEN Project has been implemented, the RE-AIM framework will be used to make revisions to the intervention which will then be disseminated to the delayed intervention group. This design will provide an opportunity to test the feasibility of replication. If successful, this novel approach, taking advantage of the synergy between healthy eating and eco-friendly messages, could be extended to elementary schools across the US and adapted to other populations. In addition, the strategy might be extended to other behaviors affecting personal health that can be tied to eco-friendly behaviors. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Poor diet quality in children in the United States contributes to obesity, chronic disease, and diminished quality of life. Our innovative school-based nutrition communication campaign, which combines the synergies of healthy eating and eco-friendly behaviors addresses the quality of foods third and fourth graders bring to school from home. If successful, the communication strategy we will employ will contribute to improving dietary quality among school-children, thus improving their quality of life.