Oral Presentation ANZOS-Breakthrough Discoveries Joint Annual Scientific Meeting 2018

Improving healthy food purchases from online canteens: A cluster RCT (#91)

Tessa Delaney 1 2 3 4 , Luke Wolfenden 1 2 3 4 , Sze Lin Yoong 1 2 3 4 , Rachel Sutherland 1 2 3 4 , John Wiggers 1 2 3 4 , Kylie Ball 5 , Karen Campbell 5 , Chris Rissel 6 7
  1. Hunter New England Local Health District, Wallsend, NSW, Australia
  2. School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia
  3. Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), Newcastle, NSW, Australia
  4. Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia
  5. Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN), School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia
  6. School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  7. Office of Preventive health, NSW Health, Liverpool, NSW, Australia

Background: School canteens represent an ideal setting to deliver public health nutrition strategies given their wide reach, and frequent use by children. Online canteens, where students order and pay for their lunch online, provide an avenue to improve healthy canteen purchases through the application strategies that impact on purchasing decisions. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of a consumer behaviour intervention implemented in an online school canteen in reducing the kilojoule, saturated fat, sugar and sodium content of primary student lunch orders.

Methods: Ten NSW primary schools (2,714 students) currently using an online canteen were recruited to a cluster RCT conducted over a 2-month period. Intervention schools received a consumer behaviour intervention integrated into their online menu (targeting menu labelling, healthy food availability, item placement and prompting). Control schools received no change to their online menu. Data were assessed using separate linear mixed models under an intention to treat framework with multiple imputation.

Results: Analysis of all available data (n=2,714 students) showed significant reductions in the average energy (-567kJ; p<0.001), saturated fat (-2.37g; p<0.001) and sodium (-228mg; p<0.001) content of intervention students’ lunch orders. No significant differences were observed for sugar (1.16g; p=0.17).

Conclusions: The study provides strong evidence supporting the efficacy of a consumer behaviour intervention utilising existing online canteen infrastructure to encourage healthier purchasing from primary school canteens. Such an intervention may represent an appealing policy option as part of a broader government strategy to improve child public health nutrition.