The Influence of School Gardens on Preferences Towards and Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables in Elementary School Student: A Cross-Sectional Study

Above is my motivation for why I did my thesis. I love agriculture. It's my life, my passion. And it's by I was hired by the Mohave County Health Department. I wanted to find out if gardens have an influence on preferences towards or consumption of fruits and vegetables. Do school gardens do anything at all? A lot of hard labor went in to installing all of these gardens and I wanted to know if all of it was worth it. 

So here's a summary.

Children in the US do not consume enough fruits and vegetables (F/V) in their diet. This is concerning because children are not receiving the health benefits F/V have to offer. The study aimed to determine the influence of school gardens on the preferences towards F/V as well as discover whether school gardens increase F/V intake among elementary school students in California. It was hypothesized that students who attend schools with school gardens will have increased preferences towards F/V than students that do attend schools without school gardens. It was also hypothesized that students that attend schools with a school garden will have a higher F/V consumption than students that attend schools without a school garden. 

Obesity is a major public health concern.

A cross-sectional study was conducted using 4 schools in California. For confidentiality reasons, I will not name the schools. I adapted an existing survey to assess students preferences, F/V intake and demographics. Frequencies were also calculated.

Getting to the results.

Days spent in a garden does not have an influence on F/V preference or consumption. Minutes spent in a garden does not have an influence on F/V preference or consumption. The frequencies say a lot more about the data than the Chi-square analyses.

What can you do with the findings?

Taste-testing is going to be an important aspect in gardening and nutrition education. Many students did not know what asparagus was and almost everyone surveyed knew what lettuce was. Frequencies of F/V showed that students didn't like squash which might mean students did not like the way in which the vegetable was prepared. This shows that preparation is key when giving taste-tests. 

Limitations.

There were a few...

I hate reporting that gardens don't really do anything in terms of F/V preference and consumption in elementary school students but that is what my data says. More studies need to be done to confirm that gardens do not have an influence whatsoever on F/V preference and consumption.

This was just a brief summary of my findings. If you want to know more, let me know via Twitter or leave a comment.