Time for Lunch: The Impact of Lunch Time Constraints on Child Eating Behaviors

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Time Constraints During School Meals
• Interventions: Behavioral: Lunch period length

• Registration Number: NCT04191291
• Lead Sponsor: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Brief Summary

Recent peer-reviewed observational evidence suggests that school children receive anywhere from 10-33 minutes of seated lunch time and that students with less time to eat discard higher amounts of milk, entrée (i.e. protein items), grains, and vegetables. This waste is a missed nutritional and food security opportunity and also negatively impacts the environment. The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact that lunch time constraints have on child food selection, consumption and waste behaviors using a crossover trial design, where the duration of seated lunch times are randomly allocated to be either 10 minutes or 20 minutes each day.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2019-06-03
• Study First Submitted: 2019-06-13
• Primary Completion: 2019-06-28
• Study Completion: 2019-06-28
• Study First Submitted QC: 2019-12-06
• Study First Posted: 2019-12-09
• Status Verified: 2022-07
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-07-18
• Last Update Posted: 2022-07-21

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 39

Inclusion Criteria

• Must be enrolled in local summer camp

Exclusion Criteria

• None

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: CROSSOVER

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Shortened lunch period	Lunch period length	The amount of seated lunch time will be 10 minutes.
Longer lunch period	Lunch period length	The amount of seated lunch time will be 20 minutes.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Food item selection	Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp	The type and number of school meal components selected by students to eat for lunch.
Food item consumption	Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp	The weight of each school meal component that was consumed by each child during lunch. Each measured in grams.
Food item waste	Ranges from 5 days to 20 days, depending upon how long each participant elects to enroll in the summer camp	The weight of each school meal component that was discarded by each child during lunch. Each measured in grams.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Illinois; 🇺🇸 Urbana, Illinois, United States