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

描述(申请人提供)：儿童不良的饮食质量会导致肥胖、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。但小学生经常带零食和午餐。几乎没有人注意到改善从家里带来的食物的营养成分。拟议的干预措施绿色(Growth Right：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天然协同作用来解决从家里带到学校的食物质量问题。我们新颖的、以学校为基础的交流活动将结合有关食物的营养和环保品质的信息。我们的目标人群是马萨诸塞州东部的三、四年级学生和他们的照顾者。我们的中心假设是，在一个学年结束时，接受健康饮食和环保信息相结合的活动的儿童，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将比只接受健康饮食交流的孩子或控制组的孩子表现出更大的改善。将在对目标人群进行定性研究的基础上，开展以理论为基础的多渠道传播活动。在这项活动中，学校将随机接受三种情况：(1)健康饮食和环保信息；(2)仅健康饮食信息；或(3)延迟健康饮食生态友好信息作为对照。主要结果是改变了带到学校的水果和蔬菜的供应数量。次要结果将包括含糖饮料和加工、高能量食品的数量变化，以及与从家里带来的食物相关的垃圾重量的变化。将使用数码摄影对这些成果进行基线和结果评估。在绿色项目实施后，将使用RE-AIM框架对干预进行修订，然后将其分发给延迟干预小组。这一设计将提供一个测试复制可行性的机会。如果成功，这种新的方法，利用健康饮食和环保信息之间的协同作用，可能会推广到美国各地的小学，并适用于其他人群。此外，该战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。 与公共健康相关：美国儿童不良的饮食质量导致肥胖、慢性病和生活质量下降。我们创新的校本营养传播活动结合了健康饮食和环保行为的协同效应，解决了三年级和四年级学生从家里带到学校的食物质量问题。如果成功，我们将采用的沟通策略将有助于改善学龄儿童的饮食质量，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.