Date of Award

2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nutrition and Food Science

Department

Nutrition and Food Sciences

First Advisor

Geoffrey Greene

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the mobile application, LaLa Lunchbox, on improving the dietary quality of lunches brought from home.

Design: Quasi-experimental design.

Setting: Middle school in East, Greenwich, RI.

Participants: 25 students in the 6th grade who were predominately white (72%) females (76%) with an average age of 11.2 years.

Intervention: For 4 weeks, LaLa Lunchbox app was used to create virtual lunchbox for each school day of the following week.

Main Outcome Measure: Lunch Quality Index (LQI) scores calculated based on the presence or absence of fruit, vegetables, protein, or empty calorie snack with a maximum score of 4 points based on four lunch observations at baseline, week 2 and 4 of intervention, and 1 week follow-up.

Analysis: A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) measured the LQI score over time between the 2 groups.

Results: Although there were no differences between groups, there was an effect of time on LQI score (p < .05). Overall fruit (67.4%) and protein (80.4%) were included in most lunches but a high calorie snack was also frequently included (52.2%) and vegetables rarely included (21.7%).

Conclusions and Implications: The mobile application, LaLa Lunchbox was not effective in improving dietary quality as a stand-alone intervention, but could be useful as a tool in combination with nutrition education focusing on increasing vegetables and reducing empty calorie snacks.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.