Garden-Based Integrated Intervention for Improving Children’s Eating Behavior for Vegetables

Seon-Ok Kim and Sin-Ae Park
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Seon-Ok Kim: Department of Bio and Healing Convergence, Graduate School, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Korea
Sin-Ae Park: Department of Bio and Healing Convergence, Graduate School, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Korea

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: This study was conducted to develop and verify the effects of a garden-based integrated intervention for improving children’s eating behavior for vegetables. A pre-pos t -test experimental design was employed. The participants were 202 elementary school students (average age: 11.6 ± 1.5 years). The garden-based integrated intervention program was conducted during regular school hours for a total of 12 weeks. The program, based on a mediator model for improving children’s eating behavior, included gardening, nutritional education, and cooking activities utilizing harvests. In order to examine effects of the program, the mediating factors related to children’s eating behavior were evaluated using pre-post questionnaires. As a result of the program, dietary self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, gardening knowledge, nutrition knowledge, vegetable preference, and vegetable consumption were significantly increased, and food neophobia was significantly decreased. In addition, there were positive correlations between most mediating factors. Thus, the garden-based integrated intervention developed in this study was effective in improving children’s eating behavior for vegetables.

Keywords: eating habits; gardening; horticultural therapy; urban agriculture; mediating factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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