Increased exposure to community-based education and 'below the line' social marketing results in increased fruit and vegetable consumption

Objective: To determine if localised programmes that are successful in engaging the community can add value to larger fruit and vegetable mass-media campaigns by evaluating the results of the Eat It To Beat It programme. Design: The Eat It To Beat It programme is a multi-strategy intervention that uses community-based education and 'below the line' social marketing to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in parents. This programme was evaluated by a controlled before-and-after study with repeat cross-sectional data collected via computer-assisted telephone interviews with 1403 parents before the intervention (2008) and 1401 following intervention delivery (2011). Setting: The intervention area was the Hunter region and the control area was the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. Subjects: Parents of primary school-aged children (Kindergarten to Year 6). Results: The programme achieved improvements in knowledge of recommended intakes for fruit and vegetables and some positive changes in knowledge of serving size for vegetables. Exposure to the programme resulted in a net increase of 0.5 servings of fruit and vegetables daily for those who recalled the programme compared with those who did not (P=0.004). Increased intake of fruit and vegetables was significantly associated with increasing exposure to programme strategies. Conclusions: The Eat It To Beat It programme demonstrates that an increase in consumption of fruit and vegetables can be achieved by programmes that build on the successes of larger mass-media and social-marketing campaigns. This suggests that funding for localised, community-based programmes should be increased.