Lower fat diets for children did not increase food costs

Food cost may be perceived as a barrier to the adoption of a low-fat diet. Therefore. the purpose of this investigation was to examine the food cases in diets of children who were adhering to a low-fat diet. These children we re part of a larger study, The Children's Health Project, examining the eff ectiveness of a nutrition education intervention in hypercholesterolemic ch ildren (4-10 years). Dietary intakes were evaluated from three 24-hour reca lls collected by telephone ar baseline and at 3 and 12 months following the intervention. Food costs were obtained using Nutritionist IV dirt analysis software and were compared between two groups of children: a treatment gro up consisting of children considered at risk (elevated plasma total cholest erol) who received the nutrition education intervention and a control group consisting of children considered to be not at risk (nonelevated plasma to tal cholesterol) who received no intervention. The rr were no significant f ood cost differences between groups for all time periods. nor were there an y differences within groups across time periods. These data suggest that am ong children adhering to a low-iac diet. there was no increase in food cost s. Nutrition education programs may benefit by providing educational strate gies to reduce or eliminate perceived food cost barriers.