The effect of nutrition education intervention on the amount of school lunch consumption in children aged 3-5 years: case study in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

Low vegetable and fruit intake and micronutrient deficiency has been reported for Thai children aged three to five years. Many nutrition education programs have been recommended to solve these problems, especially for preschool children. This study aims to investigate the effect of the novel nutrition education program on the amount of vegetables, fruit, energy and nutrients consumption in school lunches of children aged three to five years. United for Healthier Kids is a nutrition education program that desires to motivate healthy eating via a set of nutrition education tools by encouraging variety in the types of food consumed, increase vegetables and fruit consumption, and promote a healthy environment for preschool children. A total of 380 children, between three to five years of age (196 of which were female), from four schools in Bangkok participated in this study. The amount of vegetables, fruit, and other food intake was assessed by plate waste measurement for three days during the pre- and post-intervention period. Compared with the Thai DRIs, the percentage of vegetables and fruit consumption in the post-intervention period was closer to the recommended amount than in the pre-intervention period with increases of 16.02 and 8.79 in vegetable and fruit, respectively. Energy, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, iron, and vitamin C intake were significantly higher and more closely matched the recommendations in the post-intervention period. Vitamin A and vitamin B2 intake during the post-intervention period was lower than the pre-intervention period and there was no significant difference in the amounts of protein intake between the pre- and post-intervention periods. The new nutrition education has potential to increase vegetables, fruit, energy, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, iron, and vitamin C consumption of children aged 3 to 5 years. Future studies need to explore the effect of the program with larger and more diverse preschool children populations.