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The study purpose was to examine the impact of the Harvest of the Month (HOTM) program on fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption, FV preferences, other eating behaviors, physical activity and other variables related to healthy eating. A clustered randomized controlled trial was employed in 28 elementary schools. After parental consent was obtained, students in grades 4-6 were randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions (Intervention= 127, Control= 148). Students in the intervention group participated in HOTM, a widely used school-based nutrition promotion and obesity prevention program. Control group schools continued their usual practice. Participants completed baseline and follow-up surveys measuring fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption, FV preferences, other eating behaviors, physical activity, FV knowledge and self-efficacy to eat, prepare and ask for FV. No impacts of HOTM were found for FV consumption or other nutritional behaviors, physical activity, FV knowledge, or self-efficacy. A positive impact of the program was only found for FV preferences. This study suggests that the HOTM program did not affect eating behaviors or physical activity behaviors. The evidence base regarding school-based nutrition education programs including HOTM could be strengthened by the use of more rigorous impact evaluations to examine their effectiveness prior to wide-spread use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Self-report questionnaires are an important method of evaluating lifespan health, exercise, and health-related quality of life (HRQL) outcomes among elite, competitive athletes. Few instruments, however, have undergone formal characterization of their psychometric properties within this population. Objective: To evaluate the validity and reliability of a novel health and exercise questionnaire, the Trojan Lifetime Champions (TLC) Health Survey. Design: Descriptive laboratory study. Setting: A large National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I university. Patients or Other Participants: A total of 63 university alumni (age range, 24 to 84 years), including former varsity collegiate athletes and a control group of nonathletes. Intervention(s): Participants completed the TLC Health Survey twice at a mean interval of 23 days with randomization to the paper or electronic version of the instrument. Main Outcome Measure(s): Content validity, feasibility of administration, test-retest reliability, parallel-form reliability between paper and electronic forms, and estimates of systematic and typical error versus differences of clinical interest were assessed across a broad range of health, exercise, and HRQL measures. Results: Correlation coefficients, including intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for continuous variables and K agreement statistics for ordinal variables, for test-retest reliability averaged 0.86, 0.90, 0.80, and 0.74 for HRQL, lifetime health, recent health, and exercise variables, respectively. Correlation coefficients, again ICCs and K, for parallel-form reliability (ie, equivalence) between paper and electronic versions averaged 0.90, 0.85, 0.85, and 0.81 for HRQL, lifetime health, recent health, and exercise variables, respectively. Typical measurement error was less than the a priori thresholds of clinical interest, and we found minimal evidence of systematic testretest error. We found strong evidence of content validity, convergent construct validity with the Short-Form 12 Version 2 HRQL instrument, and feasibility of administration in an elite, competitive athletic population. Conclusions: These data suggest that the TLC Health Survey is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing lifetime and recent health, exercise, and HRQL, among elite competitive athletes. Generalizability of the instrument may be enhanced by additional, larger-scale studies in diverse populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]