Growing Healthy Children: Can Gardening Improve Fruit and Vegetable Attitudes in Minority Children?

Child obesity has become a national concern. Obesity in children ages 6-17 has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Only twenty percent of children today consume the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. This trend is even more pronounced in minority populations. Past studies have reported that horticulture based curriculum, including gardening, can improve children's attitudes toward eating fruits and vegetables. To investigate whether children of a minority population can benefit from gardening supplemented with nutritional curriculum, research was conducted with elementary schools in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Elementary school teachers participating in this research agreed to have school gardens and complete all activities in a nutritional curriculum provided to them through the Texas Extension Service. Children in the participating schools completed a pre- and post-test evaluating their attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge before and after gardening supplemented with nutritional information. Statistically significant differences were detected between pre- and post-test scores for all three variables. After comparing pre-and post-test scores, it was concluded that gardening with supplemental instruction, had a positive effect on all three variables including students attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their nutritional knowledge.