Free Living Food Waste Management and Diet Quality Improvement Using Smart Intervention and Food Image Application

NCT ID: NCT05061888

Last Updated: 2025-08-13

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 46 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2021-08-23
• Study Completion Date: 2025-12-30

Brief Summary

The primary aim of this study is to reduce household food waste and improve individual nutrition. This will be achieved using the FoodImageTM smartphone app 1, a novel method for measuring household food acquisition, food intake, and food waste decisions, to assess the efficacy of a smart intervention that targets food waste reduction and diet quality improvement. The intervention is designed to improve nutrition by offsetting intake of less nutritious foods with increased fresh fruit and vegetable (FV) intake while simultaneously reducing household food waste via strategies tailored to participating households.

Detailed Description

Data collected will be used to:

1. Test the effects of free FV provision on: (a) household food waste levels, (b) total FV acquisition (free FV provision plus purchases post-intervention vs. pre-intervention FV purchases), and (c) the consumption of FV (Food Patterns Equivalents Database, FPED). We hypothesize that free FV provision will increase food waste, total FV acquisition, and diet quality (increase the Healthy Eating Index [HEI]). We will test these hypotheses by comparing baseline and follow-up data from participants randomly assigned to the control condition, which features free FV provision and a placebo (stress management) intervention not focused on food waste. Exploratory analyses will examine the effects on dietary energy intake and if the freely provided FV replace non-FV foods in the baseline diet.

2. Test if a smart intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV significantly reduces post-intervention food waste compared to the control group while increasing FV acquisition and consumption compared to pre-intervention baseline. We hypothesize that this smart intervention will increase total FV acquisition and FV consumption compared to baseline, and these increases are not expected to differ significantly from control. It is further hypothesized that those receiving the smart intervention will significantly reduce food waste compared to controls. Exploratory analyses will examine the extent to which the smart intervention had the intended effect of replacing less healthy foods with FV consumption.

Conditions

Diet, Healthy

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

Food Waste Intervention Group

This group will receive an intervention on food waste management and fruit and vegetable replacement to increase diet quality while avoiding an increase in calories. Both groups will obtain free fruit and vegetable boxes and will use the FoodImage app to record food acquisition (Shop), food prep (Prep), intake (Eat) and waste (Toss) for approximately 3 (24 hour) days; ideally including 1 weekend date.

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Smart Intervention for Food Waste Management and Replacing current diet with Fruits and Vegetables

Intervention Type: OTHER

Will receive a Smart Intervention on Food Waste Management and replacing less healthy foods with fruits and vegetables.

Stress Management Control Group

This group will receive an intervention on Stress Management and will be intensity matched to the treatment group. Both groups will obtain free fruit and vegetable boxes and will use FoodImage to record food acquisition (Shop), food prep (Prep), intake (Eat) and waste (Toss) for approximately 3 (24 hour) days; ideally including 1 weekend date.

Group Type: PLACEBO_COMPARATOR

Smart Intervention for Stress Management

Intervention Type: OTHER

Will receive a Smart Intervention on stress management practices and strategies.

Interventions

Smart Intervention for Food Waste Management and Replacing current diet with Fruits and Vegetables

Will receive a Smart Intervention on Food Waste Management and replacing less healthy foods with fruits and vegetables.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Smart Intervention for Stress Management

Will receive a Smart Intervention on stress management practices and strategies.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Other Intervention Names

Treatment Group; Control Group

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Male or female, age 18-62 years
• Body mass index (BMI) 18.5 - 50 kg/m2, based on self-reported height and weight
• Ownership of an iPhone, which the participant is willing to use for the study
• Access to Apple ID, password, and email address and willing to use them in the course of the study
• Performs a majority of household food shopping and preparation
• If children are present in household, all children are between 6-18 years
• Able to meet the schedule demands for the study

Exclusion Criteria

• Not able to use an iPhone
• Refusal or unable to use the smartphone app to collect data in free-living conditions
• Households that purchase groceries less than 1 time per week
• More than 2 children living in the household
• Pennington Biomedical Research Center employee
• Unwilling to sign consent to use web screener questions for data set and analysis.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 62 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Ohio State University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Pennington Biomedical Research Center

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Corby K. Martin

Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Corby K Martin, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Pennington Biomedical

Locations

Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States

Countries

United States

Provided Documents

Document Type: Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan

View Document

Document Type: Informed Consent Form

View Document

Other Identifiers

PBRC 2021-015

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id