FoodACT: Investigating the Impact of a School Garden Intervention on Children's Food Literacy, Climate Literacy, School Motivation and Physical Activity

NCT ID: NCT05839080

Last Updated: 2025-01-15

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 990 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2023-09-01
• Study Completion Date: 2026-12-31

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of a schoolgarden intervention on pupils food literacy, climate literacy, schoolmotivation and physical activity. The study will also investigate the contextual characteristics in the garden using systematic observations and the pupil´s experience of the intervention with focus-groups interviews.

Detailed Description

Globally, the prevalence of obesity and severe obesity among children and youth is rising. Inactivity and unhealthy diet are often associated with obesity which can lead to detrimental health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes. Schools are considered a key setting for promoting children and adolescents' food literacy, climate literacy, physical activity and to improve their mental and social health. Interventions in schools have a broad impact because all children spent the majority of their waking hours in school independent of their socio-economic- and cultural background. FoodACT aims to invetigate an well-established schoolgarden intervention on pupils food literacy, climate literacy, schoolmotivation and physical activity.

School gardens create an enabling environment for increasing student's food literacy and climate literacy, where an active component is that the pupils cultivate and prepare their own crops through a program that extends through nine months and therefore becomes an integrated part of the pupils schooling. The children's' physical activty is affected without it being the focus of the school garden programs. Pupils get up from the chair in the classroom, use active transportation for example by foot or bike to the school garden and are activated by work such as digging, lifting and watering their own plot. Some school garden interventions also invovle and activate the pupils families, which increases the sustainability of the interventions effects. Previous research has stated that schools are considered a key setting for promoting children and adolescents' food literacy and physical activity and to improve their mental and social health. Relocating teaching to an outdoor nature setting, which is a central ingredients of school garden interventions, has shown to be positively related to increased physical activity in both boys and girls during the school day. Furthermore, contextual and experience related characteristics such as tasks, motions, associations and interactions realted to the school garden has not been captured.

Therefore, the aim of FoodACT is to investigate how a school gardening intervention impact pupils food literacy, climate literacy, school motivation and physical activity with a special focus on children with low socio-economics in a controlled design.

In 2023 a pilot-study will be performed to test and adjust the outcome measures.

Conditions

Physical Inactivity; Literacy; Motivation

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Intervention schools

Pupils are exposed to the schoolgarden intervention eight times during two school years

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Gardens to Bellis

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

In FoodACT the school garden intervention that will be investigated is the well described and well-developed intervention called Gardens to Bellis. It involves pupils from 4th-5th grade and their teachers. The classes attend 8 school garden sessions distributed across two school years. The sessions start each year in March and ends in November. Pupils are divided into smaller groups, who gets a plot of which they are responsible for preparing, weed and harvest. The purpose is that pupils can cook their own food with the greens, fruits and berries they harvest in the garden and finds in the nature. The pupils and their families will hatch and harvest the school gardens between the session days.

Control Schools

Pupils are not exposed to the interventions and will complete questionaries

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

No intervention

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Pupils are not receiving any intervention

Interventions

Gardens to Bellis

In FoodACT the school garden intervention that will be investigated is the well described and well-developed intervention called Gardens to Bellis. It involves pupils from 4th-5th grade and their teachers. The classes attend 8 school garden sessions distributed across two school years. The sessions start each year in March and ends in November. Pupils are divided into smaller groups, who gets a plot of which they are responsible for preparing, weed and harvest. The purpose is that pupils can cook their own food with the greens, fruits and berries they harvest in the garden and finds in the nature. The pupils and their families will hatch and harvest the school gardens between the session days.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

No intervention

Pupils are not receiving any intervention

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Other Intervention Names

FoodACT

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• 4th-5th grade school classes in Danish municipal primary and lower secondary schools participating in the 'Gardens to Bellis' intervention.
• Classes not involved in other school development or research projects.
• Participants with parents (or legal guardian) having provided written informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria

• Pupils with significant health problems as judged by the investigators will be excluded from the analysis (Sub-study 1-3).

• Minimum Eligible Age: 9 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 13 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Copenhagen

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Haver til Maver

UNKNOWN

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Center for Clinical Research and Prevention

NETWORK

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Peter Elsborg

Principal Investigator

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Locations

Center for Clinical Research and Prevention

Frederiksberg, Capital Region, Denmark

Countries

Denmark

References

Stage A, Vermund MC, Bolling M, Otte CR, Oest Mullertz AL, Bentsen P, Nielsen G, Elsborg P. The impact of a school garden program on children's food literacy, climate change literacy, school motivation, and physical activity: A study protocol. PLoS One. 2025 Apr 24;20(4):e0320574. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0320574. eCollection 2025.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 40273231 (View on PubMed)

Related Links

http://www.foodact.dk

FoodACT website

Other Identifiers

NFF22SH0077522

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id