Effect of an Integrated Nutrition-math Curriculum to Improve Food-purchasing Behavior of Children

Data show that nearly 25% of children aged four to eight years consumed fast food on a typical day. These trends in fast food consumption are more acute among low-income urban dwellers where higher rates of overweight and childhood obesity are seen. This has led to a focus on providing fast food consumers with point-of-purchase nutrition information, such as the calorie posting mandates, in the hopes that these decision cues will help consumers make better informed dietary decisions. Most children chose their own meals at the point-of-purchase. It is clear that additional strategies are needed to encourage the point-of-purchase use of calorie postings, however available studies provide little insight into best practices or the types of approaches needed.

It is with this in mind that the investigator developed a school-based approach to improve point-of purchase use of calorie postings, by creating a novel intervention that targets menu board calorie literacy as a means of improving food-purchasing behaviors.

Hip Hop Nutrition-Math Curriculum is a novel behaviorally focused multimedia, musical school health rap toolkit that targets what we refer to as menu board calorie literacy. 4th grade common core math standards are integrated into the program in a manner that incorporates evidence-based nutrition education recommendations by the Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The investigator proposes to test the efficacy of the integrative approach on food purchasing behaviors of children in an adequately powered, controlled trial. The investigator will test the intervention in the after-school setting among economically disadvantaged children and incorporate parental engagement in our outcome evaluations. There is a partnership with New York City's largest after-school program vendor, New York Edge (formerly called Sports and Arts in Schools foundation/SASF), for the implementation of this study.

The goal of a health literacy intervention is to improve health decision-making and/or behavior. For this reason, the investigator will measure both menu board calorie literacy and food choice behavior at a point-of-purchase.