School-based approaches to affect adolescents' diets: results from the TEENS study.
This article reports on the outcomes of the Teens Eating for Energy and Nutrition at School (TEENS) study, a 2-year intervention study conducted in 16 middle schools with a goal of increasing students' intakes of fruits, vegetables, and lower fat foods. Despite positive interim results for students randomized to intervention schools, the positive effects of the intervention were not seen for the primary outcomes at the end of the 2nd year. Positive effects were seen only for a food choice score (suggesting that the students usually choose lower versus higher fat foods) and not for measures of food intake. Future studies may need to take a step back toward more controlled efficacy studies in working with this age-group. In addition, future work may consider the use of peer leaders, more intensive teacher training, ongoing formative assessment, and the testing of more powerful environmental change intervention strategies.
Lytle
Leslie A
LA
Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 55454, USA. lytle@epi.umn.edu
Murray
David M
DM
Perry
Cheryl L
CL
Story
Mary
M
Birnbaum
Amanda S
AS
Kubik
Martha Y
MY
Varnell
Sherri
S
D000293:Adolescent; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008910:Minnesota; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012572:School Health Services; D014481:United States