Nutrition Detectives

The Nutrition Detectives Program (ND) is created for elementary school children meant to educate the students about nutrition and make a positive impact on their health with minimal burden to the normal school curriculum. The education program teaches students how to understand food labels based on “5 clues”, detect marketing deception, and select the healthier food option.

Nutrition Detectives is a low cost intervention that affects the community and demographic factors of the Birch model. This program is a primary intervention devised by Dr. David L. Katz to teach elementary school children (ages 5 through 11) and their parents how to read nutrition labels, differentiate between marketing and reality, and select healthier food options. ND is a colorful and attractive curriculum that can be implemented at any public school because it uses minimal resources like time and person-power and is therefore less invasive to the school’s mandatory curriculum. The program can be downloaded online and is available in different platforms: 1) a DVD of Katz giving the lessons or 2) a Power Point slideshow for a school-based facilitator. Each lesson is followed by activities (also downloadable online) for students to apply their knowledge. These activities are designed to be child-friendly by using colorful graphics, animal characters, and condensing of nutrition knowledge into absorbable sound bites. There are a total of 5 mini lessons with each teachable in 40-60 minutes, and they are all available free of charge provided the instructor gives due credit to Katz.

The goal of the program is to provide elementary schools with a low-cost, non-invasive curriculum to educate elementary school children on how to read nutrition labels, differentiate between marketing versus reality, and select healthier food options.

Nutrition Detectives shows that a low-cost, non-invasive educational program based around downloadable videos, presentations, and materials can improve young students' and their parents' ability to make healthier food and nutrition choices.

Nutrition Detectives (ND) was evaluated by a group-randomized, controlled evaluation in five schools in the Independence School District in Independence, Missouri during the 2007-2008 school year. Data were collected from grades 2-4 and the intervention group (n=628) and control (n=552) were matched based on grade level, gender, and age. Baseline data, which includes gender, grade, age, weight, height, BMI, dietary intake, and nutrition knowledge, were collected for students in each group as well as their parents. After the intervention, the students’ BMIs were measured and they were given a 10-point food label quiz to assess their nutrition knowledge and a Youth and Adolescent Questionnaire (YAQ) to fill out with their parent/guardian.

The study found a significant difference between nutrition knowledge in the intervention versus control group with regards to score in the nutrition knowledge quiz (p<0.01). Third grade intervention students showed the most improvement in nutrition knowledge compared to the control (p<0.01). Parents of children in the intervention group also showed an increase in nutrition knowledge compared to parents in the control group (p<0.01). In addition, reinforcing the delivery of the ND program with a booster session improved the students’ nutrition knowledge from the initial session (p<0.01).