Sh. Kelder et al., COMMUNITY-WIDE YOUTH NUTRITION EDUCATION - LONG-TERM OUTCOMES OF THE MINNESOTA HEART HEALTH-PROGRAM, Health education research, 10(2), 1995, pp. 119-131
Citations number
39
Categorie Soggetti
Public, Environmental & Occupation Heath","Education & Educational Research
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.