COMMUNITY-WIDE YOUTH NUTRITION EDUCATION - LONG-TERM OUTCOMES OF THE MINNESOTA HEART HEALTH-PROGRAM

The Class of 1989 was part of the Minnesota Heart Health Program, a re search and demonstration project designed to reduce cardiovascular dis ease in three intervention communities, This paper describes the long- term outcomes of a school- and community-based intervention on healthy eating behaviors in one intervention and matched reference community. Beginning in the sixth grade (1983), seven annual waves of behavioral measurements were taken from both communities (baseline N = 2376). Se lf-reported data were collected at each time period including measures of knowledge and preferences for certain foods, and food salting beha vior. Data were analyzed using an ANCOVA model adjusting for baseline dependent variable differences, with the school as the unit of analysi s. Knowledge, healthy food choices and restraint in food salting behav ior variables were significantly higher throughout most of the follow- up period in the intervention community for females. Males also indica ted greater knowledge of healthier choices in the intervention communi ty and greater restraint in salting behavior but results are less conc lusive for healthy food choices. These results suggest that multiple i ntervention components such as behavioral education in schools coupled with community-wide health promotion strategies can produce modest bu t lasting improvement in adolescent knowledge and choices of heart hea lthy foods and less frequent food salting practices, and that this imp rovement is most notable among females.