Effectiveness of Taste Lessons with and without additional experiential learning activities on children’s psychosocial determinants of vegetables consumption

Experiential learning methods seem to be promising to enhance healthy eating behaviour in children. Therefore, this study compared the effectiveness of the Dutch programme Taste Lessons with and without additional experiential learning activities on children’s psychosocial determinants of vegetable consumption. In a quasi-experimental design, 800 children aged 8–11 years old from 34 elementary schools participated in a Taste Lessons (TL: 5 lessons) group, a Taste Lessons Vegetable Menu (TLVM: TL with 3 added experiential learning activities) group, and a control group. During a baseline and follow-up measurement, children completed a questionnaire on psychosocial determinants towards vegetables consumption. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted to compare changes in the determinants between the TLVM group and the TL group, and between the two intervention groups and the control group. The TLVM group showed a significantly higher increase in knowledge (p