Nutrition education intervention in a low-income middle school increases students’ smart beverage choices

Historically, the intake of fruits and vegetables by children is low, and children in low-income environments are even less likely to consume the recommended fruits and vegetables each day. Fruit and vegetable consumption is linked to obesity which leads to other detrimental diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes mellitus. The purpose of this intervention was to evaluate the effects of an afterschool nutrition education in a low-income middle school setting. A pre-survey and post-survey were implemented to evaluate how the intervention impacted the participants’ general nutrition knowledge, open-mindedness to taste unfamiliar fruits and vegetables (FVs), and intake of FVs and common beverages. Paired-sample t-tests were used to assess differences between the pre-survey and post-survey data. All analyses were performed using SPSS version 22.0.00, and the priori significance level was set to alpha \u3c0.05. The results indicated a significant increase in the quality of smart beverage choices from baseline (12.40+3.50 score) to the end of the 16-week intervention (13.73+2.28 score), (t=2.256(14), p=0.041). There was a significant decrease in nutrition knowledge from baseline (7.40+1.40 score) to the end of the 16-week intervention (6.47+ 2.17 score), (t=-2.226 (14), p=0.043). No other significant differences were observed