Use of health education and attempted dietary change to modify atherosclerotic risk factors: A controlled trial

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if nutrition education regarding atherosclerotic risk factors and dietary changes that might reduce these factors, taught in an elementary school setting, would cause children to alter their diets in a way that would produce a significant reduction in risk factor values as compared to a control group. Serum cholesterol, blood pressure, height, weight, and skinfold thickness were the evaluated variables. Sixty-eight children who had been enrolled in the intervention program had complete data at the termination of the 3-year study. The major control group consisted of 23 children from a different school. Additional control groups were formed to provide information regarding general population changes in the risk factors during the time span of the study and to investigate values of children who did not complete the entire program. The results showed no major significant changes for these variables as compared to the control group or the preintervention values for the intervention population. As expected, the population had an initially relatively low risk. Tracking of these variables over 3 years showed results similar to those of other investigations that did not include intervention. It is concluded that, although the education proved effective by cognitive testing, the methodology used in this study was ineffective in reducing significantly the above risk factors of the population investigated.