Examining the relationship between completeness of teachers' implementation of the Krachtvoer healthy diet programme and changes in students' dietary intakes.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the current study was to examine if the completeness of programme implementation and the completeness of implementation of specific programme elements of the Dutch school-based healthy diet promotion programme Krachtvoer are related to short- and longer-term changes in students' fruit, sweets and breakfast intakes. DESIGN: Data on students' dietary intakes were collected 1­4 weeks and 6 months after programme implementation. Teachers filled in a logbook on programme implementation after each lesson. The relationships between changes in students' dietary intakes and completeness of implementation of the programme and of specific programme elements were tested using mixed linear regression analyses. SETTING: Thirteen Dutch prevocational schools. SUBJECTS: Eight hundred and seventy-six of the 1117 participating students and eighteen of the twenty-two participating teachers. RESULTS: Completeness of programme implementation was positively related to an increase in fruit consumption in the short term. Completeness of implementation of food exposure activities and a practical lesson on advertisements were related to an increase in fruit consumption in the short as well as the longer term. No such relationships were found for sweets and breakfast consumption. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that efforts should be made to help teachers implement the programme as fully as possible.