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The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study
Cost has been reported as the main barrier to healthy eating in vulnerable groups. We aimed to evaluate the effect of a nutrition education intervention on adherence to Mediterranean Diet and health when providing food vouchers. This pilot study has a randomized control trial design. We included 66...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9739317/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36501009 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14234980 |
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author | Miguel-Berges, María L. Jimeno-Martínez, Andrea Larruy-García, Alicia Moreno, Luis A. Rodríguez, Gerardo Iguacel, Isabel |
author_facet | Miguel-Berges, María L. Jimeno-Martínez, Andrea Larruy-García, Alicia Moreno, Luis A. Rodríguez, Gerardo Iguacel, Isabel |
author_sort | Miguel-Berges, María L. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Cost has been reported as the main barrier to healthy eating in vulnerable groups. We aimed to evaluate the effect of a nutrition education intervention on adherence to Mediterranean Diet and health when providing food vouchers. This pilot study has a randomized control trial design. We included 66 vulnerable users from the Red Cross of Zaragoza (Spain). Intervention and control group individuals received 120 euros/month of food vouchers over 3 months to be spent in supermarkets (60 euros/month if under 12 y) plus a 10-week nutrition education program for the intervention group. Family food purchases were assessed using electronically recorded supermarket-obtained transactions. During and at the end of the intervention the percentage of healthy food was higher in the intervention than in the control group. Once the nutrition education was over, differences between groups dissipated. In the intervention group, health parameters improved, particularly weight-status, lipids, and liver enzymes. Control participants gained weight, although lipid and liver enzymes improved. Blood pressure and HbA1c did not improve in either the intervention or the control group. In conclusion, providing unrestricted food vouchers to vulnerable groups to increase healthy food consumption appears to be insufficient and should be accompanied by medium-long term nutrition education. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9739317 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97393172022-12-11 The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study Miguel-Berges, María L. Jimeno-Martínez, Andrea Larruy-García, Alicia Moreno, Luis A. Rodríguez, Gerardo Iguacel, Isabel Nutrients Article Cost has been reported as the main barrier to healthy eating in vulnerable groups. We aimed to evaluate the effect of a nutrition education intervention on adherence to Mediterranean Diet and health when providing food vouchers. This pilot study has a randomized control trial design. We included 66 vulnerable users from the Red Cross of Zaragoza (Spain). Intervention and control group individuals received 120 euros/month of food vouchers over 3 months to be spent in supermarkets (60 euros/month if under 12 y) plus a 10-week nutrition education program for the intervention group. Family food purchases were assessed using electronically recorded supermarket-obtained transactions. During and at the end of the intervention the percentage of healthy food was higher in the intervention than in the control group. Once the nutrition education was over, differences between groups dissipated. In the intervention group, health parameters improved, particularly weight-status, lipids, and liver enzymes. Control participants gained weight, although lipid and liver enzymes improved. Blood pressure and HbA1c did not improve in either the intervention or the control group. In conclusion, providing unrestricted food vouchers to vulnerable groups to increase healthy food consumption appears to be insufficient and should be accompanied by medium-long term nutrition education. MDPI 2022-11-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9739317/ /pubmed/36501009 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14234980 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Miguel-Berges, María L. Jimeno-Martínez, Andrea Larruy-García, Alicia Moreno, Luis A. Rodríguez, Gerardo Iguacel, Isabel The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study |
title | The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study |
title_full | The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study |
title_fullStr | The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study |
title_full_unstemmed | The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study |
title_short | The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study |
title_sort | effect of food vouchers and an educational intervention on promoting healthy eating in vulnerable families: a pilot study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9739317/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36501009 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14234980 |
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