Nepal: Reinforcing school gardens with home gardens in Nepal to improve family food choices
Preliminary findings suggest that there is great promise for small home and school garden projects to foster changes in food choice behavior and improve dietary quality.
Drivers of Food Choice
Krystal Rampalli, MPH,
Pepijn Schreinemachers, Ph.D
May 16, 2019
Excerpt:
To try to gain a clearer understanding of the impact of school gardening programs on food choices and nutrition in Nepal, WorldVeg recently piloted a two-year cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT). The researchers hypothesized that school vegetable gardens combined with nutrition education would improve the food consumption habits and subsequent nutritional status of Nepalese schoolchildren ages 10-15 years old. A secondary hypothesis was that their intervention would help raise awareness and preferences toward healthier foods and sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices (Schreinemachers et al., 2017).
For the intervention group, there were three major activities: 1) Creation of a school garden for students to cultivate nutritious vegetables, with mentorship provided by teachers and community members; 2) Health/agriculture education, focused specifically on gardening, WASH, and nutrition; 3) Promotional activities to reinforce the study’s key messages. The study used a difference-in-differences estimator to find that there was a statistically significant (p<0.01) increase in the outcome indicators, particularly the intervention group’s awareness and knowledge around agriculture, nutrition, and health, as well as self-reported preference for consuming fruits and vegetables (Schreinemachers, et al., 2017). However, the researchers found that those improvements did not directly correspond in actions toward consumption of fresh produce. They concluded that without intensive engagement of communities and families, especially parents, healthier food choices could not be achieved (Schreinemachers et al., 2017; World Vegetable Center, 2017).
