Factors influencing vegetable intake in low income, multiethnic school children

• Published in: The FASEB journal 2007-04, Vol.21 (5), p.A675-A675
• Main Authors: Wakimoto, Patricia, Donohue, Susan, Gildengorin, Ginny, Sutherland, Barbara
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0892-6638; 1530-6860
• DOI: 10.1096/fasebj.21.5.A675-a

Current recommendations, nationally and internationally, are to eat more vegetables and fruits. Improving the intake of vegetables and fruits remains an important public health challenge, especially for children. The objective of this observational, cross sectional study was to determine vegetable intake in a sample of multi‐ethnic children and examine the influence of flavor enhancers on vegetable intake. The setting was 2 elementary schools in northern California in the spring of 2006. The sample included 181 third and fourth graders of mixed ethnicities. Children were served a 2‐ounce portion of 5 different vegetables, every other day for 2 weeks, with a one‐week break between the two‐week periods for a total of 15 exposures in approximately 10 weeks. Vegetables were served plain and then with two different flavor enhancers. There were no significance differences in vegetable intake based on school, grade, ethnicity and gender. A period effect was found in total amount change. As a result, we used data from the first two periods and modeled the amount of vegetables eaten to determine any differences in the three groups while controlling for gender, school and ethnicity. There was a significant difference between vegetable intake alone versus vegetable with flavor enhancers(p