Publications by authors named "Katie Nikah"
Background: School gardening programs have consistently been found to improve dietary behaviors in children. Although several quasi-experimental studies have also reported that school gardens can enhance academic performance, to date, no randomized controlled trial has been conducted to substantiate this.
Objective: The objective of the study was to examine the effects of Texas Sprouts (TX Sprouts), a gardening, nutrition, and cooking program vs control on academic performance in primarily low-income, Hispanic children.
School gardens have become common school-based health promotion strategies to enhance dietary behaviors in the United States. The goal of this study was to examine the effects of TX Sprouts, a one-year school-based gardening, cooking, and nutrition cluster randomized controlled trial, on students' dietary intake and quality. Eight schools were randomly assigned to the TX Sprouts intervention and eight schools to control (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To identify school garden attributes and practices that most strongly contribute to garden use and sustainability and translate them into recommendations for improving garden-based nutrition education.
Design: Surveys were developed and administered to school stakeholders to assess the barriers, strategies, and resources for successful school garden-based nutrition education. A panel of school garden experts identified thriving school gardens.
Background: Although school garden programs have been shown to improve dietary behaviors, there has not been a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted to examine the effects of school garden programs on obesity or other health outcomes. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of a one-year school-based gardening, nutrition, and cooking intervention (called Texas Sprouts) on dietary intake, obesity outcomes, and blood pressure in elementary school children.
Methods: This study was a school-based cluster RCT with 16 elementary schools that were randomly assigned to either the Texas Sprouts intervention (n = 8 schools) or to control (delayed intervention, n = 8 schools).
Aims: To outline the study design, outcome measures, protocol and baseline characteristics of enrolled participants of Texas (TX) Sprouts, a one-year school-based gardening, nutrition, and cooking cluster randomized trial.
Methods: Eight schools were randomly assigned to the TX Sprouts intervention and eight schools to the delayed intervention over three years (2016-2019). The intervention arm received: formation/training of Garden Leadership Committees; a 0.