Abstract
Introduction
Prevention of obesity and overweight is an important target for health promotion. Early prevention requires an intervention during childhood and adolescence. At these stages, the game could be an appropriate means to teach nutrition knowledge and to influence dietary behaviour. To this end, the authors developed Kalèdo, a new board-game.
Objective
The aim of the present study was to test the efficacy of Kalèdo on changes in nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour in a pilot study conducted in three middle schools in Naples, Italy.
Materials and Methods
A simple two-group design (treatment and control) with pre- and post-assessment was employed. The classroom was the unit of recruitment and random assignment to groups. All students (307) in the participating schools were invited to participate. Data analysis was performed on 241 subjects. During 24 weeks, a group of 153 children from 8 classrooms (11–14 year old Caucasian subjects; 78 male, 75 female) was involved in 15–30 minute-long play sessions once a week. A questionnaire was given to the participants at the beginning and at the end of the study to evaluate nutrition knowledge (31 questions), physical activity (8 questions) and food intake (34 questions). Anthropometric measurements were also carried out. A second group of 88 children from 5 classrooms (same age and ethnicity; 55 male, 33 female) was investigated at the same times with the same questionnaire and anthropometric measures but they did not receive any play sessions with Kalèdo.
Observation
Children playing Kalèdo showed a significant increase in nutrition knowledge (p<0.05) and in weekly vegetable intake (p<0.01) with respect to the control.
Conclusion
The results suggest that Kalèdo could be an effective instrument to teach children about healthy diet. More research is needed to study the long term effect of this intervention.
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Acknowledgements
This study has been made possible by contributions from the Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau (AIFO), Commune of Naples and from the Second University of Naples. The authors would like to thank the principles and teachers of the three schools Viale delle Acacie, G. Capuozzo and G. Pascoli 2 for their collaboration and participation in the research. We are also thankful to Dr. Daniel Klement and Dr. Jaroslav Vorlíček for their help in the statistical analysis. Finally, we would like to thank Fr. Salvatore Coppola who coined the word Kalèdo from the ancient Greek words χαλως εδω (eating well).
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Amaro, S., Viggiano, A., Di Costanzo, A. et al. Kalèdo, a new educational board-game, gives nutritional rudiments and encourages healthy eating in children: a pilot cluster randomized trial. Eur J Pediatr 165, 630–635 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-006-0153-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-006-0153-9