Increasing toddlers' vegetable consumption through interactive shared reading of a vegetable-promoting picture book and puppetry.

• Register: ANZCTR
• Last refreshed on: 13 January 2020
• Main ID: ACTRN12616000133437
• Date of registration: 04/02/2016
• Prospective Registration: No
• Primary sponsor: Radboud University
• Public title: Increasing toddlers' vegetable consumption through interactive shared reading of a vegetable-promoting picture book and puppetry.
• Scientific title: Promoting toddlers’ vegetable consumption through interactive shared reading and puppetry.
• Date of first enrolment: 16/02/2015
• Target sample size: 200
• Recruitment status: Completed
• URL: https://anzctr.org.au/ACTRN12616000133437.aspx
• Study type: Interventional
• Study design: Purpose: Prevention; Allocation: Randomised controlled trial; Masking: Blinded (masking used);Assignment: Factorial;Type of endpoint: Efficacy;
• Phase: Not Applicable

Countries of recruitment

Netherlands

Contacts

• Name: Dr Simone M. de Droog

• Name: Dr Simone M. de Droog

Key inclusion & exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: - Boys and girls aged 2-3 years without food allergies.
- From nursery schools without formal fruit and vegetable programs, with children from mostly low-SES households.
- Nursary schools provided active consent, and parents provided passive consent for their children.
Exclusion criteria: Nursery schools with formal fruit and vegetable programs, children with food allergies.

Age minimum: 2 Years
Age maximum: 3 Years
Gender: Both males and females

Health Condition(s) or Problem(s) studied

Vegetable consumption;Overweight;
Vegetable consumption
Overweight

Diet and Nutrition - Obesity

Public Health - Health promotion/education

Intervention(s)

STUDY DESIGN:
The intervention used in this experimental study consisted of shared reading a picture book about a rabbit that loves to eat carrots. The study had a 2 (reading style: passive vs. interactive) x 2 (puppet use: without vs. with hand puppet) between-subjects design. Toddlers (2-3 years old) were randomly assigned to one of these four conditions. During the interactive reading sessions, children were asked questions about the story, whereas no questions were asked during the passive reading sessions. Both types of shared reading were either performed with a puppet resembling the main book character (rabbit) or without a puppet.

PROCEDURE:
Reading sessions were conducted in a quiet room within the nursery school during one week. Because Dutch nursery schools are closed on Wednesday afternoon, the readings took place on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (thus, the intervention ran for one week only, with children participating in four reading sessions in total). The reading sessions took about ten minutes, each consisting of approximately four toddlers. Since there were no attendance requirements at the schools, the composition of shared reading groups could differ within the same condition. Toddlers were given name stickers, which facilitated observers to fill out a checklist of children’s behaviors shown during the reading sessions. Moreover, name stickers facilitated the storyteller to ask questions to the children during interactive shared reading. After the fourth reading session (on Friday), the dependent variable was measured with an eating task, in which toddlers could freely eat snacks for five minutes.
For the reading sessions, four young females with a pedagogical background were recruited and trained in the different reading sty

Primary Outcome(s)

CARROT CONSUMPTION:
Toddlers were presented with 4 equal-sized bowls, each containing 4 pieces of a different snack. They could choose from 2 healthy snacks (carrots & cucumber), and 2 unhealthy snacks (cheese & salted sticks). It was counted how many pieces of each product toddlers had eaten after the maximum 5 minutes had elapsed. The proportion of consumed carrots was calculated by dividing the pieces of carrots the child had eaten by the total amount of pieces of foods the child had eaten.[After exposure to the intervention (i.e., after 4 days of reading)]

Secondary Outcome(s)

CHARACTER IMITATION:
Observers registered the poses that toddlers physically imitated from the book characters during reading (e.g., eating carrots, being strong). The number of poses demonstrated were summed to create a single measure of character imitation, with a higher score indicating more character imitation.[Observed during each reading, thus 4 times, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.]

Secondary ID(s)

None

Source(s) of Monetary Support

Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS)

Ethics review

Status: Approved
Approval date:
Contact:

Ethics Committee Social Sciences of Radboud University