Experiential learning to establish healthy eating in children and their families.

Context and implications The current project is concerned with increasing vegetable intake in children across different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Encouraging vegetable eating behaviours in a community where energy dense, low nutrient diets are consumed is of interest to the community and local authorities because vegetable intake is a protective factor for overweight, obesity and various other physical health conditions. Therefore, finding the most effective method for increasing vegetable intake may have long-term financial benefits for healthcare expenditure and long-term health benefits for children. Objectives When and what strategies are most successful for different children to increase vegetable intake? This question will be addressed by grouping children into appropriate age ranges (4-7yrs, 8-11yrs and 12-16yrs). This will determine the part of the question when the strategies are most successful. It will also be useful to include in what setting an intervention is useful. Two environments where eating behaviour is important for children is at home and in school. In previous research, interventions have usually only been measured in one setting. However, there could be other possibilities, such as eating with friends,that influence vegetable intake. This is important to consider because evidence has shown that vegetable intake decreases in adolescence compared to childhood. Therefore, there could be mediating factors underlying this effect. Many strategies have been used to encourage an increase in vegetable intake (parent-child cooking lessons, gardening sessions, repeated exposure, flavour-flavour learning, flavour-nutrient learning, non-food rewards, nutrient education, modelling, serving a variety of vegetables at once, vegetable choice before a meal, social media blogs etc.) across different ages. However, many of these are unsuitable for long-term increases in intake or for use with a low socioeconomic population. Greater amounts of vegetables served can lead to greater consumption (270g vs 360g), although this could also lead to greater food waste if not accepted. There is also evidence that giving non-food rewards for eating vegetables increases short-term intake. However, the vegetables gradually become a barrier to getting the reward and therefore, when the reward stops, so does the vegetable intake. Consequently, identifying the most successful strategies should be tailored to each age group based on available evidence. The current study proposes that nutrition education in children is an imperative strategy to compare. This is because research has shown that even adults lack clarity on the 5 a day message, what foods are included and what constitutes a portion. Other methods to compare could include parent-child cooking sessions, including using
liked condiments (herbs and spices with vegetables increases intake). Vegetable gardening interventions may also be compared with younger children, along with weekly 'trying' sessions for exposure and trying novel vegetables. This is important because exposure usually increases intake for target vegetables, but not for novel vegetables. What components of interventions secure sustainable changes in habitual consumption of new and familiar vegetables? The present literature suggests that interventions are more effective when there is greater parental involvement, parents are responsible for participation and implementation, inclusion of prompt barrier identification, prompt self-monitoring and specific goal setting behaviour change techniques are used. Environmental, educational and multi-component interventions also have greater success. However, these factors may change with age. In children aged 6-12, availability, accessibility and taste preferences are most consistently linked to increased consumption of vegetables.