The Association Between Child Cooking Involvement in Food Preparation and Fruit and Vegetable Intake in a Hispanic Youth Population

BACKGROUND: Cooking interventions have been linked to reductions in obesity and improvements in dietary intake in children. OBJECTIVE: To assess whether child cooking involvement (CCI) was associated with fruit intake (FI), vegetable intake (VI), vegetable preference (VP), and vegetable exposure (VE) in children participating in the Texas, Grow! Eat! Go! (TGEG) randomized controlled trial. METHODS: ) CSH plus LGEG plus WAT (combined group). Height, weight, dietary intake, VE, VP, and CCI were collected at baseline and postintervention. Linear regressions were used to assess the relation between baseline CCI and fruit and vegetable (FV) intake, VE, and VP. A priori covariates included age, sex, race/ethnicity, and TGEG treatment group. RESULTS: < 0.01, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Results show a positive relation between family cooking and FV intake and preference in high-risk, minority children.