A randomized control trial of a Canadian-based school food program on the home food environment.

Research provides evidence of take-home effects in school-based nutrition interventions, citing children as important influencers of family nutrition, acting as agents of change in the household and potentially influencing family food consumption. Therefore, the purpose of this randomized control trial was to examine whether implementation of a centrally procured school food program would produce changes in children's home food environment, including fruit and/or vegetable availability and parental modelling of fruit and/or vegetable consumption. A secondary objective was to investigate whether children's fruit and/or vegetable intake predicted their parent's fruit and/or vegetable intake. A total of 60 schools participated in the evaluation, including 2443 students (and their parents) in grades 5-8. Findings indicated that the intervention did not produce take-home effects on children's home availability of fruit (p = 0.52) and vegetables (p = 0.67) or parental modelling of fruit (p = 0.26) and vegetable consumption (p = 0.78), which may be related to the fact that only food provisions were given. However, children's fruit and vegetable consumption predicted parents' fruit and vegetable consumption (p < 0.001), thereby indicating that children may possess the capacity to influence home nutrition. Future school-based nutrition interventions are recommended to be multi-component (e.g. experiential learning, parent involvement) and that encourage nutrition leadership opportunities for children in the home context.

Within the family, children are important influencers of nutrition and exert their influence both in household food purchases and mealtime decisions. As such, children may use their influence to produce changes in food consumption for all family members. This study evaluated whether providing students with fruit and vegetables at school as part of a government-funded snack program would produce changes in family and household nutrition. Specifically, this study examined if the availability of fruit and vegetables at home could be increased through children requesting the same food served at school, as well as if parents would model the behaviour of eating more fruit and vegetables in front of their children. Results of this study found that providing children with fruit and vegetables at school did not increase the availability of fruit and vegetables at home or encourage parents to eat more fruit and vegetables in front of their children. However, strengthening the argument that children may influence family nutrition, children's fruit and vegetable intakes were shown to influence parents' intakes. These findings suggest that, instead of only providing fruit and vegetables to children, future nutrition initiatives should include additional components, such as hands-on activities and parental engagement.

Reaction on Social Media to Online News Headlines Following the Release of Canada's Food Guide.

This paper investigated how traditional media headlines framed the release of Canada's Food Guide (CFG) online in 2019 and how audiences reacted to its release on social media. Titles of online news articles, Facebook comments on news stories, and tweets from Twitter were collected using Meltwater and manual data collection. Leximancer software conducted conceptual extraction and relational analyses on written words and visual text. Human coding was completed to contextualize the content, which identified 9 prominent frames (food guide, impact, health, sustainable plant food, who will use?, Canadian culture, food and consumption practices, meat, and dairy). Results suggested that online news headlines highlighted CFG release and alluded to potential impacts. Analysis of Facebook comments revealed that the most commonly discussed frames were health, food and consumption behaviours, sustainable plant food, and meat, while the majority of the tweets were in direct reference to CFG being released, oftentimes with a link to another webpage, and discussed the intersect between health and food and consumption practices. In conclusion, the analysis revealed how frames emerged from social media users that shifted the discussion away from CFG release and impact to the influence of health and food and a plant versus meat debate.