Acceptability, Helpfulness, and Utility of the Healthy Lunch Box Booklet (HLBB) for Parents and School-Age Children
Publication: Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research
25 May 2023
Abstract
Purpose: School lunches are of poor nutritional quality in Canada. Parents play an important role in the preparation of school lunches for young children. This study aimed to evaluate the acceptability and helpfulness of the Healthy Lunch Box Booklet (HLBB) to support parents in packing healthy school lunches for their children.
Methods: The HLBB was distributed at four schools in London, Ontario to students in full-day Kindergarten to Grade three. Parents were asked to complete an online survey from April to November 2019.
Results: Parents (n = 58) reported the HLBB to be helpful (96.3%) and found the sections on new school lunch and snack ideas and nutritional information (e.g., label reading) particularly useful. Some parents also stated that the HLBB created opportunities to interact with their children regarding school lunch preparation. In terms of perceived impacts, parents reported increased confidence (68.6%) and learning something new (79.6%) about school lunch preparation and felt that their children’s diet was impacted accordingly.
Conclusions: The HLBB was found to be an acceptable and useful nutrition resource that supports parents in packing healthy school lunches for their children and therefore warrants further study.
Résumé
Objectif. La qualité nutritionnelle des dîners envoyés à l’école est faible au Canada. Les parents jouent un rôle important dans la préparation des lunchs des jeunes enfants. Cette étude visait à évaluer l’acceptabilité et l’utilité du Healthy LunchBox Booklet [Livret sur les boîtes à lunch santé] (HLBB) pour aider les parents à préparer des lunchs sains pour leurs enfants.
Méthodes. Le HLBB a été distribué dans quatre écoles de London, en Ontario, à des élèves de la maternelle à temps plein à la troisième année. Les parents ont été invités à répondre à un sondage en ligne entre avril et novembre 2019.
Résultats. Les parents (n = 58) ont indiqué que le HLBB était utile (96,3 %) et ont trouvé particulièrement utiles les sections sur les nouvelles idées de dîners et de collations pour l’école et sur l’information nutritionnelle (p. ex. lecture des étiquettes). Certains parents ont également affirmé que le HLBB avait créé des occasions d’interagir avec leurs enfants concernant la préparation des lunchs pour l’école. Quant aux impacts perçus, les parents ont déclaré avoir gagné en confiance (68,6 %) et avoir appris quelque chose de nouveau (79,6 %) sur la préparation des lunchs pour l’école, et estimaient que l’alimentation de leurs enfants avait été affectée en conséquence.
Conclusions. Le HLBB s’est révélé être une ressource nutritionnelle acceptable et utile qui aide les parents à préparer pour leurs enfants des lunchs santé pour l’école et mérite donc d’être étudié plus en détail.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Funding: Brescia Internal Research Grant (#07-2019).
Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
REFERENCES
1
Neilson LJ, Macaskill LA, Luk JMH, Sharma N, Killip SM, Salvadori MI, et al.Students’ Food Intake from Home-Packed Lunches in the Traditional versus Balanced School Day. Can J Diet Pract Res. 2017 Mar;78(1):3–10.
2
Taylor JP, Hernandez KJ, Caiger JM, Giberson D, MacLellan D, Sweeney-Nixon M, et al. Nutritional quality of children’s school lunches: differences according to food source. Public Health Nutr. 2012 Dec;15(12):2259–2264.
3
Cleghorn CL, Evans CE, Kitchen MS, and Cade JE. Details and acceptability of a nutrition intervention programme designed to improve the contents of children’s packed lunches. Public Health Nutr. 2010 Aug;13(8):1254–1261.
4
Hawthorne DL, Neilson LJ, Macaskill LA, Luk JMH, Horner EJ, Parks CA, et al. Parental Reports of Lunch-Packing Behaviours Lack Accuracy: Reported Barriers and Facilitators to Packing School Lunches. Can J Diet Pract Res. 2018 Sep;79(3):99–105.
5
Hubbard KL, Must A, Eliasziw M, Folta SC, and Goldberg J. What’s in Children’s Backpacks: Foods Brought from Home. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2014 Sep 1;114(9):1424–1431.
6
Larsen AL, Liao Y, Alberts J, Huh J, Robertson T, and Dunton GF. RE-AIM Analysis of a School-Based Nutrition Education Intervention in Kindergarteners. J Sch Health. 2017;87(1):36–46.
7
Brown A, Sutherland R, Reeves P, Nathan N, and Wolfenden L. Cost and Cost Effectiveness of a Pilot m-Health Intervention Targeting Parents of School-Aged Children to Improve the Nutritional Quality of Foods Packed in the Lunchbox. Nutrients. 2021 Nov 19;13(11):4136.
8
Roberts-Gray C, Sweitzer SJ, Ranjit N, Potratz C, Rood M, Romo-Palafox MJ, et al.Structuring Process Evaluation to Forecast Use and Sustainability of an Intervention: Theory and Data From the Efficacy Trial for Lunch Is in the Bag. Health Educ Behav. 2017;44(4):559–569.
9
Evans CEL, Greenwood DC, Thomas JD, and Cade JE. A cross-sectional survey of children’s packed lunches in the UK: food- and nutrient-based results. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2010 Nov 1;64(11):977–983.
10
Hart LM, Damiano SR, and Paxton SJ. Confident body, confident child: A randomized controlled trial evaluation of a parenting resource for promoting healthy body image and eating patterns in 2- to 6-year old children. Int J Eat Disord. 2016 May;49(5):458–472.
11
Silk KJ, Sherry J, Winn B, Keesecker N, Horodynski MA, and Sayir A. Increasing Nutrition Literacy: Testing the Effectiveness of Print, Web site, and Game Modalities. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2008 Jan 1;40(1):3–10.
12
Health Canada. Household food insecurity in Canada: Overview [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2022 Dec 19]. Available from: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/food-nutrition-surveillance/health-nutrition-surveys/canadian-community-health-survey-cchs/household-food-insecurity-canada-overview.html
13
Fulkerson JA, Kubik MY, Rydell S, Boutelle KN, Garwick A, Story M, et al. Focus Groups with Working Parents of School-aged Children: What’s Needed to Improve Family Meals? J Nutr Educ Behav. 2011 May 1;43(3):189–193.
14
Velardo S and Drummond M. Understanding parental health literacy and food related parenting practices. Health Sociol Rev. 2013;22(2):137–150.
15
Chu YL, Farmer A, Fung C, Kuhle S, Storey KE, and Veugelers PJ. Involvement in home meal preparation is associated with food preference and self-efficacy among Canadian children. Public Health Nutr. 2013 Jan;16(1):108–112.
16
Chu YL, Storey KE, and Veugelers PJ. Involvement in Meal Preparation at Home Is Associated With Better Diet Quality Among Canadian Children. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2014 Jul 1;46(4):304–308.
17
Sutter C, Taylor JC, Nishina A, and Ontai LL. Parental and family predictors of fruits and vegetables in elementary school children’s home-packed lunches across a school week. Appetite. 2019 Feb;133:423–432.
Supplementary Material
File (cjdpr-2023-011suppla.docx)
- Download
- 21.28 KB
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research
Volume 84 • Number 3 • September 2023
Pages: 176 - 179
Editor: Naomi Cahill
History
Version of record online: 25 May 2023
Copyright
© 2023.
Key Words
Mots-clés
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Other Metrics
Citations
Cite As
TamaraPetresinMScFN, RD and Danielle S.BattramPhD, RD, PHEc. 2023. Acceptability, Helpfulness, and Utility of the Healthy Lunch Box Booklet (HLBB) for Parents and School-Age Children. Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research.
84(3): 176-179. https://doi.org/10.3148/cjdpr-2023-011
Export Citations
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
There are no citations for this item
View Options
Get Access
Login options
Check if you access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Subscribe
Click on the button below to subscribe to Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research
