An evaluation of the nutrition education and training program. Findings from Nebraska

This paper summarizes methods and findings from a classical randomized experiment used to evaluate the Nutrition Education and Training (NET) Program that was developed and implemented in Nebraska. The evaluation focused on assessing how well the program was implemented and the impact it had on children's nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and habits. Data were collected from over 2,300 children in 96 classrooms distributed across grades 1-6 in 20 schools spanning the state of Nebraska. The 20 participating schools were selected from 98 volunteers and were assigned to treatment or control status using a modified random assignment procedure that resulted in equivalent pretest means on outcome measures. Pretest data and two waves of posttest data were collected. The evaluation found strong positive effects in all grades on several measures of nutrition knowledge, positive effects on reported food preference and willingness to select new foods in the school lunch line in grades 1-3, positive effects on willingness to taste previously rejected foods in grades 4-6, and no consistent effects on food attitudes, reported food habits, or plate waste.