Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Senior Thesis

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Nursing

Primary Major

Nursing

Thesis Advisor

Deborah Meshel, RN, MSN

Abstract

Background: Childhood obesity is a pressing public health concern in the United States, with rates continuing to increase in recent years. This problem disproportionately affects Latino children as well as those from low socioeconomic status. It is well established that nutrition knowledge deficiencies and resulting poor dietary habits are some of the most common contributing factors to childhood obesity. Garden-based nutrition education programs have been introduced to remedy this knowledge deficit; however, a gap remains regarding whether this model can be viable for low-income, culturally diverse populations.
Aim: This literature review investigates the importance of diet in reducing childhood obesity while exploring the effects of gardening-based nutrition education on dietary choice improvements. This literature review presents gardening-based nutrition education models as an effective and sustainable method of obesity reduction by establishing a connection between improved dietary knowledge and dietary choices, thus leading to a lower incidence of obesity.
Method: A quasi-experimental design with a convenience sample of 200 subjects split into an interventional and a control group. The interventional group will receive an 11-week-long nutrition education program to accompany the children's regular school hours. Participants will be between the ages of 7 and 10, consistent with the ages of third to fifth grade elementary school children. Both groups will take a pre- and post-test using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) Survey, where results will be further plotted along a radar plot to examine each scoring component of the HEI. Result: The expectation is that the interventional group will see improvements to the HEI scores in each category compared to the control group, except for a decrease in the added sugars category.

Download

Share

COinS