Promoting healthy eating in childhood: Results from the Children PrOmOting Nutrition throUgh Theatre (COcONUT) project

BACKGROUND: Despite several international initiatives aimed to contrast childhood overweight and obesity, these still represent a major public health problem. Recently, the World Health Organization called for a new type of preventive action, requiring stakeholders from both governments and civil society, to play a decisive role in shaping healthy environments, especially for children. METHODS: COcONUT (Children PrOmOting Nutrition throUgh Theatre) was a nutrition education project, involving children aged 5-12 years, aimed to raise awareness on healthy eating, through theatrical and practical workshops. Within this project we conducted an observational study assessing: 1) children adherence to the Mediterranean diet, using the KIDMED questionnaire; 2) parental nutritional knowledge and families' food habits using the ZOOM8 questionnaire. The non-parametric Wilcoxon and the McNemar's Test were used. Statistical significance was fixed P<0.05. RESULTS: Our data show a statistically significant improvement in Mediterranean Diet adherence among children (P=0.0004). Moreover, we found positive trends in some families' food habits, as for instance less perceived barriers in fruits/vegetables/pulses consumption, less perceived barriers in doing sports and less consumption of unhealthy snacks. CONCLUSIONS: Our results confirm the important role played by funny and active learning in health promotion initiatives.