Meal Time/Family Time: An Evaluation of a Nutrition Education Program

1
Meal Time/Family Time An Evaluation of a
Nutrition Education Program

• Sondra M. Parmer, MS
• Alabama Cooperative
• Extension System
• Auburn University

2
Purpose of Study

• To provide a profile of family eating
  characteristics currently lacking in the
  literature of a limited-resource population.
• To evaluate knowledge and behavior change of
  individuals participating in Meal Time/Family
  Time, a nutrition education program focused on
  creating and implementing the shared family meal.

3
Why is family meal time important?

• nutrition
• more balanced meals
• better eating habits
• family well-being
• vocabulary building/communication
• family cohesiveness

4
(No Transcript)
5
Method

• Sample
• Curriculum
• Instrument Development
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis

6
Sample
7
Curriculum

• Meal Time/Family Time - Experimental
• understanding value of family meal time
• creating the shared family meal
• Managing Your Food Dollar - Control
• understanding money management skills related to
  food buying
• developing skills for maximizing food dollars

8
Instrument Development

• Pre- and post-assessment
• Based on curriculum content
• 2nd grade reading level
• 30 Likert-scale items
• 10 knowledge items knowledge scale
• 20 behavior items behavior scale

9
Instrument Validity and Reliability

• Content validity
• Reliability - Pilot Test
• .60 Cronbach alpha for knowledge scale
• .79 Cronbach alpha for behavior scale
• Reliability - Study
• .67 Cronbach alpha for knowledge scale
• .81 Cronbach alpha for behavior scale

10
Data Collection

• Pre- and post-assessments
• Administered by Program Assistants
• Assessments read out loud

11
Data Analysis

• Frequency tables
• Pearson chi-square
• Repeated-measures ANOVA
• Paired-samples t-test

12
Demographic Characteristics

• Mean age - 37.3 years
• African-American - 67
• Rural - 67
• Education
• 41 not completed high school
• 50 graduated from high school
• 9 attended schooling beyond high school

13
Characteristics of Family Meal Time Behavior
14
Occurrence of Family Meals
15
Problem Areas

• 55 of respondents watched TV always or often
  during family meal times, an additional 28
  watched TV sometimes during family meal times
• 48 of respondents were using meal time to solve
  problems
• 69 of respondents reported making their children
  eat as a way to have a healthy diet

16
Childrens Involvement

• 75 of respondents children were washing hands
• HOWEVER, children were not involved in family
  meal events such as
• menu planning
• food shopping
• food preparation
• dish washing

17
Knowledge and Behavior Change of Individuals
Participating in Meal Time/Family Time
18
Pre- and Post-Assessment Scores

• Behavior Scale
• Knowledge Scale

19
Behavior Scale

• One-way within-subjects ANOVA
• independent variable time of assessments
• dependent variable pre- and post- assessment
  scores on behavior scale
• Significant main effect for time

20
Behavior Scale Post-Hoc Tests

• No significant difference found between
  experimental and control groups at
  pre-assessment - groups are considered
  homogeneous at pre-assessment
• Significant difference found between experimental
  and control groups at post-assessment

21
Behavior Scale Additional Follow-Up Test

• Significant difference found for the experimental
  group with means increasing over time
• No significant difference found for the control
  group

22
Consistent with expectations, participants in the
educational program, Meal Time/Family Time,
positively changed their family meal behavior
practices as compared to participants in the
educational program, Managing Your Food Dollar.
23
Knowledge Scale

• One-way within-subjects ANOVA
• independent variable time of assessments
• dependent variable pre- and post-assessment
  scores on knowledge scale
• Significant main effect for time

24
Knowledge Scale Post-Hoc Tests

• No significant difference found between
  experimental and control groups at
  pre-assessment - groups are considered
  homogeneous at pre-assessment
• No significant difference found between
  experimental and control groups at post-assessment

25
Knowledge Scale Additional Follow-Up Tests

• Significant difference found for the experimental
  group with means increasing over time
• Significant difference found for the control
  group with means increasing over time

26
These findings for the knowledge scale were not
consistent with expectations, however they were
not entirely surprising. It was discovered that
one of the ten items on the assessment was also
included in the curriculum taught to the control
group.
27
Summary

• 2 objectives were met
• Descriptive information was collected for a
  limited-resource population concerning family
  meal time behavior and knowledge
• Meal Time/Family Time was found to be an
  effective educational program on the behavior
  dimension due to change found in experimental
  sample as compared to control group