- Title
- Cluster randomized controlled trial of a consumer behavior intervention to improve healthy food purchases from online canteens
- Creator
- Delaney, Tessa; Wyse, Rebecca; Yoong, Sze Lin; Sutherland, Rachel; Wiggers, John; Ball, Kylie; Campbell, Karen; Rissel, Chris; Lecathelinais, Christophe; Wolfenden, Luke
- Relation
- NHMRC.1042442 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1042442
- Relation
- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 106, Issue 5, p. 1311-1320
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.117.158329
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Background: School canteens represent an opportune setting in which to deliver public health nutrition strategies because of their wide reach and frequent use by children. Online school-canteen ordering systems, where students order and pay for their lunch online, provide an avenue to improve healthy canteen purchases through the application of consumer-behavior strategies that have an impact on purchasing decisions.Objective: We assessed the efficacy of a consumer-behavior intervention implemented in an online school-canteen ordering system in reducing the energy, saturated fat, sugar, and sodium contents of primary student lunch orders.Design: A cluster-randomized controlled trial was conducted that involved 2714 students (aged 5-12 y) from 10 primary schools in New South Wales, Australia, who were currently using an online canteen ordering system. Schools were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either the intervention (enhanced system) or the control (standard online ordering only). The intervention included consumer-behavior strategies that were integrated into the online ordering system (targeting menu labeling, healthy food availability, placement, and prompting). Results: Mean energy (difference: -567.25 kJ; 95% CI: -697.95, -436.55 kJ; P < 0.001), saturated fat (difference: -2.37 g; 95% CI: -3.08, -1.67 g; P < 0.001), and sodium (difference: -227.56 mg; 95% CI: -334.93, -120.19 mg; P < 0.001) contents per student lunch order were significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group at follow-up. No significant differences were observed for sugar (difference: 1.16 g; 95% CI: -0.50, 2.83 g; P = 0.17). Conclusions: The study provides strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of a consumer-behavior intervention using an existing online canteen infrastructure to improve purchasing behavior from primary school canteens. Such an intervention may represent an appealing policy option as part of a broader government strategy to improve child public health nutrition. This trial was registered at www.anzctr.org.au as ACTRN12616000499482.
- Subject
- canteen; child diet; child dietary intake; consumer behavior; intervention; nutrition epidemiology and public health; public health nutrition; obesity; school; school canteen
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1352302
- Identifier
- uon:30850
- Identifier
- ISSN:0002-9165
- Language
- eng
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Goal 2: Zero Hunger
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