The impact of nutrition education with and without a school garden on knowledge, vegetable intake and preferences and quality of school life among primary-school students

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of school garden-enhanced nutrition education (NE) on children's fruit and vegetable consumption, vegetable preferences, fruit and vegetable knowledge and quality of school life. DESIGN: Quasi-experimental 10-week intervention with nutrition education and garden (NE 54 % boys). RESULTS: Relative to controls, significant between-group differences were found for NE willingness to taste capsicum (P = 0·04), broccoli (P = 0·01), tomato (P < 0·001) and pea (P = 0·02); and student preference to eat broccoli (P < 0·001) and pea (P < 0·001) as a snack. No group-by-time differences were found for vegetable intake (P = 0·22), fruit intake (P = 0·23) or QoSL (P = 0·98). CONCLUSIONS: School gardens can impact positively on primary-school students' willingness to taste vegetables and their vegetable taste ratings, but given the complexity of dietary behaviour change, more comprehensive strategies are required to increase vegetable intake.