Evaluation of the Cancer Council NSW Eat It To Beat It Healthy Lunch Box Sessions: A short intervention to promote the intake of fruit and vegetables among families of primary school children in NSW Australia

Issue addressed Children and adults in Australia are not eating the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of a health promotion intervention to improve fruit and vegetable intake among primary school children and their families in NSW . Methods The Cancer Council New South Wales Healthy Lunch Box sessions were a 25‐minute session delivered to parents of primary school‐aged children. The sessions provided information and resources about fruit and vegetables and healthy school lunch boxes. The evaluation is a quantitative uncontrolled pre‐post design. Data were collected using three questionnaires, pre‐intervention, 1 week post‐intervention and 6 months post‐intervention. Results A total of 204 parents completed all three evaluation questionnaires to 6 months. Knowledge of recommended intakes and serving sizes of fruit and vegetables improved significantly after the intervention. There was an increase in parents reporting packing vegetables (often/always) in the child's lunch box at 1 week (47%) and 6 months post‐intervention (40%) compared to pre‐intervention (32%). The proportion of parents reporting that they were confident in packing a healthy lunch box increased from 45% pre‐intervention to 62% after the intervention. Conclusion The Healthy Lunch Box sessions were effective in improving parental knowledge and practices related to fruit and vegetables and parental confidence with packing a healthy lunch box. So what? This short intervention could be a useful component of a portfolio of interventions to support parents with knowledge and resources to pack a healthy lunch box for their children.