Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among preschoolers: evaluation of color me healthy.

OBJECTIVE: Determine whether Color Me Healthy (CMH), an interactive nutrition and physical activity program for preschool children, increases fruit and vegetable consumption.

DESIGN: Intervention study. Data were collected at baseline, 1 week post-intervention, and 3 months post-intervention.

SETTING: Child care centers.

PARTICIPANTS: Preschool children (n = 263) in 17 child care centers.

INTERVENTION: Child care centers were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions; children (n = 165) in 10 centers received the CMH curriculum, and children (n = 98) in 7 centers acted as comparisons and did not receive the curriculum.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Process and outcome evaluation. Consumption of fruit and vegetable snacks.

ANALYSIS: Data were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance and hierarchical linear modeling.

RESULTS: Children who received CMH significantly increased their consumption of fruit snacks by approximately 20.8% and vegetable snacks by approximately 33.1% between baseline assessment and the assessment conducted 3 months after the completion of the CMH program. Hierarchical linear modeling determined that group assignment (ie, CMH or control) was the only significant predictor of fruit and vegetable consumption.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Findings suggest that CMH may be used in child care settings for developing healthful eating habits.