Examination of Head Start students' and teachers' attitudes and behaviors toward trying new foods as part of a social marketing campaign

Objective: To determine the impact of preschool teacher food-related attitudes and behaviors on child food behaviors. Design: A twelve-week intervention and observational study with teachers completing questionnaires before and after the intervention. Setting: Head Start classrooms throughout Virginia. Participants: 177 preschool Head Start teachers and 1534 children. Intervention(s): Food Friends, a twelve-week social marketing campaign, was conducted by Head Start teachers during the Spring 2007, introducing children to novel foods with food puppets, nutrition-related activities and novel food tasting opportunities. Hypotheses related to the impact of preschool teachers' food-related attitudes and behaviors on children's food behaviors were tested, and changes in teacher and child food behaviors were measured. Main Outcome Measures: Teacher food-related attitudes and behaviors were measured/quantified. Child food behaviors were measured and compared to teacher attitudes and behaviors. Analysis: Descriptive, correlational and t-test statistics were conducted. Results: Teachers' and children's acceptance of novel foods improved after the Food Friends program, however, no direct correlations were found between teacher food-related attitudes and behaviors and child food behaviors. Conclusions and Implications: Preschool teacher attitudes and behaviors may not significantly impact child food-related behaviors. More research is needed to determine effective ways of encouraging positive child food behaviors.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise

Department dc:contributor.department

Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Stratton, Jessica Nicole

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Serrano, Elena L.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Fu, Victoria R.
• Hosig, Kathryn W.

• Food Friends
• Head Start
• teachers
• preschool
• food neophobia

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-04242008-141138

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/31878