Table 2.
Child Demographics at Baseline and Attrition Rates for Data Collection Measures at Each Time Point for Intervention and Comparison Groups (n = 113)
| Intervention (n = 49) |
Comparison (n = 64) |
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristics | n (%) | M | SD | n (%) | M | SD | Test Statistic | P |
| Sex (n)a | ||||||||
| Male | 24 (49) | – | – | 41 (62) | – | – | 1.94 | 0.16 |
| Female | 25 (51) | – | – | 23 (38) | – | – | ||
| Race/ethnicityb | ||||||||
| Black/African American | 42 (85.7) | – | – | 49 (76.6) | – | – | 3.99 | 0.40 |
| Hispanic | 1 (2.0) | – | – | 6 (9.4) | – | – | ||
| White | 2 (4.1) | – | – | 4 (6.3) | – | – | ||
| Asian | 0 (0) | – | – | 1 (1.6) | – | – | ||
| Other | 4 (8.2) | – | – | 3 (4.7) | – | – | ||
| Agec | – | 3.82 | 0.57 | – | 3.59 | 0.56 | 2.1 | 0.04 |
| BMI percentile for agec | 2.37 | 0.51 | ||||||
| Underweight (< 5th percentile) | 2 (4.1) | – | – | 3 (4.7) | – | – | ||
| Normal (5th to 85th percentile) | 28 (57.1) | – | – | 32 (50) | – | – | ||
| Overweight (85th to 95th percentile) | 5 (10.2) | – | – | 13 (20.3) | – | – | ||
| Obese (≥ 95th percentile) | 14 (28.6) | – | – | 16 (25) | – | – | ||
| BMI z-scorec | – | 0.71 | 1.38 | – | 0.73 | 1.40 | 0.07 | 0.95 |
| Parent-reported neophobia score | – | 3.87 | 1.27 | – | 3.90 | 1.44 | 0.11 | 0.91 |
| Target vegetable liking score | – | 3.21 | 1.07 | – | 3.18 | 1.10 | 0.13 | 0.90 |
| SCS | – | 267.16 | 100.22 | – | 265.03 | 67.53 | 0.14 | 0.89 |
| Baseline | Midpoint | Final | Baseline | Midpoint | Final | |||
| Attrition, n (% dropout)d | ||||||||
| Target vegetable liking scores | 48 (0) | 45 (6.3) | 33 (26.7) | 64 (0) | 48 (25) | 42 (12.5) | ||
| SCS | 49 (0) | 46 (6.1) | 38 (17.4) | 64 (0) | 50 (21.9) | 45 (10) | ||
M indicates mean; SCS, skin carotenoid status.
Test statistic: chi-square (test of indepedence)
test statistic: Fisher exact test
test statistic: independent t test.
Note: Attrition rates in table reflect children’s participation in data collection measures at each time point. Twenty-nine children were missing measures from both target vegetable liking and SCS. Values reported for each measurement are independent and do not account for this overlap. Overall attrition for target vegetable liking was 31% for intervention group and 34% for comparison group. Overall attrition for SCS was 22% for intervention group and 30% for comparison group. Attrition analysis revealed that between children who were dropped from the analysis and those were not, there were no significant differences at baseline in sex (χ2 = 0.429; degrees of freedom [df] = 1; n = 113; P = 0.55), ethnicity (Fisher exact test = 2.397; P = 0.75), age (t = 0.542; df = 111; P = 0.89), target vegetable liking (t = 0.947; df = 110; P = 0.346), Veggie Meter (Longevity Link Corporation, Salt Lake City, UT) (t = 0.900; df = 111; P = 0.370), neophobia (t = 0.607; df = 110; P = 0.545), or BMI z-score (t = 0.062; df = 110; P = 0.951). Continuous variables were calculated and compared using independent t tests, categorical variables were calculated and compared using chi-square (test of independence) and race was calculated using Fisher exact test. The intervention group received 7 hands-on, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics food-based learning activities, over a 4-month period, to expose children to 9 target vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, radish, sweet potato, cucumber, tomato, carrot, and pea pod).