Recipient Organization
UNIV OF IDAHO
875 PERIMETER DRIVE
MOSCOW,ID 83844-9803
Performing Department
Family and Consumer Sciences
Non Technical Summary
Regular fish consumption may support brain health. Trout lines developed in Idaho containhigher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, nutrients important for human cognition and mentalwellbeing. Developed to support aquaculture sustainability, consumer preferences and humanhealth benefits of these fish are unknown. Addressing the program priority area Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases, the long-term goal of this integrated project is to utilizenutrition education strategies to increase adult and child consumption of fish to improve brainhealth as measured by cognitive and emotional wellbeing. Research objectives and activitiesinclude, (1) adult and child consumer panels to provide sensory evaluation on three strains oftrout, (2) effects of repeated exposure (RE) and child-centered nutrition phrases (CCNP) oneating behaviors and brain health will be determined using one control and two treatment groupsof children in childcare settings, (3) effects of nutrition education, incorporating CCNP and fish preparation techniques, and RE targeting family meals on eating behaviors of children and brainhealth of adults and children will be determined using four treatment groups in the home setting.Extension objectives and activities include developing and marketing About Trout! Pond toPlate, 12-video nutrition education series incorporating CCNP and fish preparation techniques.Education objectives and activities will provide students with experiential learningopportunities in curriculum development, evaluation, data collection, and analysis.Results from this project will provide foundational scientific evidence demonstrating successful approaches for facilitating adult and children's liking and consumption of fish to supportcognitive and mental health.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
35%
Applied
65%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The long-term goal of this integrated project is to utilize nutrition education strategies toincrease adult and child consumption of fish to improve brain health as measured by cognitive and emotional wellbeing.The research objectives of this project are to (1) describe the influence of trout strain (fish-mealdiet, CX line, CLX line) on the sensory properties and acceptance of trout, (2) determine how repeated exposure (RE) and repeated exposure plus child-centered nutrition phrases (RE+CCNP), in a childcare setting, will impact children's willingness to try, like, and consumetrout and the effect of trout consumption on cognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes, and(3) determine how nutrition education, incorporating CCNP and fish preparation techniques, andRE targeting family meals in a home setting, will impact children's and adults' willingness totry, like, and consume trout and the effect of trout consumption on adults' and children'scognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes. The extension objectives are to (1) develop atrout-centered nutrition education and recipe preparation 12-video series to be delivered through the Extension Foundation, and (2) develop and disseminate marketing materials to promote the 12-video series for use after this project ends. The education objectives are to provide graduatestudents with training and experiential learning opportunities in (1) curriculum development andevaluation and (2) data collection and analysis.
Project Methods
Research Objective 1:Two untrained consumer panels will provide sensory evaluation on three different strains of trout (fish-meal diet, CX line, CLX line).Children 3-5 years of age (n=50) will be recruited from preschools and childcare centers in the Pullman, WA/Moscow, ID area to determine acceptance of each trout sample. A second panel of adults (n=80) will be recruited from the same area to evaluate acceptance of each sample; questions regarding specific sensory properties will also be included to understand more about sensory properties and influence of these properties on liking. Each subject will be offered a 10 gram serving of each type of trout. Compusense sensory software will be used to present the sensory questionnaire, and collect all data.Research Objective 2:A within subjects, pre/post design will be employed to compare the effect of repeated exposure (RE) and repeated exposure plus child centered nutrition phrases (RE+CCNP) on eating behaviors of children 3-5 years of age. Children (n=99) will be recruited from the preschools and childcare centers in the Moscow, ID/Pullman, WA area. Children will be randomly assigned to a control, RE, or RE+CCNP group. Parents of all participating children will complete a demographic and trout consumption habits questionnaire. Children's baseline consumption and liking will be collected following established previously described protocols. The NIH Toolbox® for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function (NIHTB) will be used to assess cognitive outcomes and emotional wellbeing measures. Children in the RE and RE+CCNP groups will be repeatedly offered trout, in which children will have 10 opportunities to taste a 2 ounce portion of CLX line trout and eat as much of the 2 oz and they would like. In the RE+CCNP condition, research assistants will also deliver the CCNPs (developmentally appropriate statements about the health benefits of trout, i.e. "trout helps your brain so you can learn and play"), while children taste the samples of trout to determine whether additional benefit in food behaviors occurs if messaging is paired with repeated exposure. In the RE condition, research assistants will only talk about the tasting procedure. Children in the control group will have 10 opportunities to interact with researchers participating in a non-tasting activity, such as a board game or coloring activity. Pre-post assessments will use standardized measures to assess children's willingness to try, liking of trout, and intake of trout (consumption of trout). Researchers will follow a previously developed protocol to capture children's state of hunger using "hunger dolls" to represent really hungry, really full, or not very hungry and not very full.After hunger is assessed, a hedonic rating scale will be used to assess children's taste preferences. Children will first be introduced to this system and understanding of the scale confirmed. The scale consists of three faces individually shown to the child, from left to right in the following order: yummy (smiling face), just okay (neutral face), and yucky (frowning face).Children will be presented with a 2oz portion of CLX trout, along with a water cup, and asked to try the trout. After trying the trout, children will be asked to place the portion cup in front of the face that describes how the trout tasted. They will then be allowed to continue eating as much of the trout as they would like. To determine increased intake, for the pre and post tasting activities the trout servings will be weighed pre/post consumption as a proxy of intake. At post assessment, cognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes will again be measured using the NIHTB. Within and between group differences in cognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes will be assessed using analysis of variance. Independent t-test will be used to examine the effects of repeated exposure on intake and liking of trout in children. When appropriate, parametric (e.g. multinomial regression, chi-square) and non-parametric tests will be used to evaluate parent responses from the questionnaire. Descriptive data will be reported for all outcomes.Research Objective 3:A 12-week quasi-experimental design will be employed to capture the translational impact of repeated exposure and nutrition education to the home setting on intake of whole CLX line trout and the effect on adult and youth cognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes. A control and three treatment groups will be recruited from a convenience sample of Eat Smart Idaho participants in northern and south central Idaho. Eat Smart Idaho is a University of Idaho Extension program that delivers nutrition and physical activity programming to low-income Idahoans. Subjects (a parent and child aged 5-8 years from each family) will be recruited in cohorts of 6-7 dyads. These cohorts will be randomly assigned to one of four groups with 50 subjects (25 families) in each group. All groups will receive nutrition education from Eat Smart Idaho's standard 6-lesson in-person series. The control group (CTRL) will only receive this education. One treatment group (CCNP) will also be asked to view an online trout-specific nutrition education and recipe preparation video series, About Trout! Pond to Plate. A second treatment group (RE) will receive two servings of trout per week to prepare at home and consume. The third treatment group (RE+CCNP) will be asked to view the About Trout! Pond to Plate video series and receive two servings of trout per week. Dyads enrolled in the RE and RE+CCNP groups will receive a cooler with pre-portioned packages of flash frozen trout each week. They will be asked to prepare and consume 2 servings of fish each week for 12 weeks (adult servings is 4 oz. child serving is 2 oz. portion of CLX trout provided by the Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station). Data collected at baseline will include demographic information, a trout consumption habits questionnaire, child food preferences and consumption, and child and adult cognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes (using NIHTB). After 6 weeks, child food preferences and consumption will again be assessed. After 12 weeks, the trout consumption habits questionnaire, and adult and child cognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes will be assessed. Analysis of variance for the intake of trout and cognitive and emotional wellbeing outcomes will be used to examine the effects of the treatment conditions (RE, CCNP, RE+CCNP) to control in the home setting. When appropriate, parametric (e.g. multinomial regression, chi-square) and non-parametric tests will be used to examine parent responses from the questionnaire and changes in knowledge from the nutrition education lessons. Descriptive data will be reported for all outcomes.Extension Objective 1: A video series, About Trout! Pond to Plate, will be created to include lessons that center on preparing a child-friendly trout-centered mealwhere adults and children can follow along to prepare. The videos willinclude information on nutritional value of trout, food safety, and creating a positive mealtime environment,including the use of child-centered nutritional phrases. Alsoincluded in this 12-video series will be footage educating viewers on where trout come from,connecting them to the aquaculture industry in special "Pond to Plate" segments featuring thestudy team's aquaculture scientists.In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum, this series will include knowledge checks and self-reported behavior change incorporated into each lesson.Extension Objective 2: A multi-marketing strategy will be developed to promote the continued use of the video series including print and electronic flyersas well as a short video introducing the series to be shared on web-based platforms.Education Objectives 1 and 2:Fivegraduate students will contribute to accomplishing research and extension objectives.