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MyPlate analysis of central Texas child‐care centers’ lunch menus reveals improvements after Best Food for Families, Infants, and Toddlers workshop intervention (624.24)
Author(s) -
Thompson Courtney,
Crixell Sylvia,
Bates Kristin,
BiedigerFriedman Lesli,
Friedman BJ
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.624.24
Subject(s) - overweight , intervention (counseling) , childhood obesity , meal , medicine , family medicine , child care , obesity , portion size , psychology , medical education , nursing , food science , chemistry , pathology
Approximately 32% of US children ages 2‐19 are overweight or obese. Because most children spend up to 35 hours/week in child‐care, the child‐care center (CCC) is an optimum venue for fostering proper dietary habits to help prevent obesity. Following Institutional Review Board guidelines, 45 CCCs in central Texas were called and 32 directors agreed to participate. During the first site visit, directors and staff gave informed consent, and one month of menus was collected. Menu items for each meal served were analyzed by SuperTracker, and the output of categorized items was entered into Microsoft Excel to generate summary pie charts. During a workshop intervention, each CCC director and staff were collectively provided with their pie charts along with a pie chart depicting MyPlate guidelines. Nutrition lessons guided staff to develop goals to improve menus. After 4 months of telephone follow‐up support, new menus were collected. Pre/post comparison in SPSS of lunch menu items from 7 CCC revealed a significant decrease in the amount of starchy vegetables served (P<0.05) and a trend in increased red/orange vegetables served (P=0.073), suggesting that this MyPlate activity facilitated positive changes.