Abstract
BACKGROUND: Vegetable consumption among children is below recommended. Food rejection, especially vegetables, is common in preschool-aged children. Impoverished food knowledge is associated with this rejection. The Veggies4myHeart project aims to promote vegetable consumption and knowledge among preschoolers’. This study assesses the project’s effectiveness in increasing vegetable knowledge and consumption and whether increased knowledge influences vegetable consumption. METHODS: Veggies4myHeart is a prospective longitudinal study with children 2-6 years old attending preschools. Two preschools participated in a five-week intervention in the 2023/24 academic year. A distinctive pedagogical tool was tested in each preschool: a storybook and a digital game. Knowledge and vegetable consumption were assessed before and after the intervention. Knowledge was evaluated through a questionnaire with taxonomic categorization. Consumption was assessed by recording the portions of eight vegetables (carrot, lettuce, red cabbage, cucumber, tomato, onion, beetroot, and red bell pepper). Wilcoxon test was applied to compare vegetable knowledge and consumption before and after the intervention. Spearman’s correlation was used to examine the association between knowledge and vegetable consumption before and after the intervention. RESULTS: 98 children (55.1% female, mean age 4.15 ± 0.868 years) participated. Statistically significant increases in both knowledge and total vegetable consumption were observed post-intervention in both preschools (p < 0.001). A moderate correlation of 0.412 (p = 0.013) in the storybook group post-intervention suggests that increased knowledge may contribute to increased vegetable consumption. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the potential of the Veggies4myHeart project as an effective strategy to promote knowledge about vegetables among preschool children, highlighting the critical role of educational interventions in promoting healthier dietary patterns. KEY MESSAGES: • To increase vegetable knowledge may lead to higher consumption in preschool children. • Veggies4myHeart demonstrated its effectiveness as an educational project for preschool children.