Effectiveness of an intervention to facilitate the implementation of healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices in childcare services: a randomised controlled trial

Table 4 Mean number of serves consumed by children for each food group within the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating and proportion of children engaged in sedentary, walking or very active physical activity by group at follow-up

Food group		Intervention group	Control group	p value
Food group		n = 41 children, mean (SD) serves	n = 49 children, mean (SD) serves	p value
Vegetables		0.1 (0.3)	0.2 (0.6)	0.32
Fruit		1.1 (1.1)	0.8 (0.7)	0.14
Grains (breads and cereals)		1.6 (0.5)	1.4 (0.8)	0.28
Meat and meat alternatives		0.1 (0.2)	0.1 (0.3)	0.67
Milk, yoghurt and cheese		0.7 (0.6)	0.7 (0.7)	0.96
Discretionary foods^a		0.7 (0.6)	0.7 (0.7)	0.79
Physical activity level		n = 17 services, % (95 % CI) of observations	n = 19 services, % (95 % CI) of observations
All observations	Sedentary	44.8 (41.5, 48.1)	49.2 (45.8, 52.5)	0.49
	Walking	29.1 (26.5, 31.7)	29.5 (27.2, 31.8)
	Very active	26.1 (22.5, 29.8)	21.3 (17.7, 24.9)
Structured physical activity	Sedentary	41.5 (31.1, 51.9)	41.4 (31.3, 51.4)	0.64
	Walking	18.2 (10.4, 26.1)	25.7 (19.0, 32.5)
	Very active	40.3 (29.5, 51.0)	32.9 (23.1, 42.6)
Outdoor free play	Sedentary	45.7 (42.4, 49.0)	51.1 (48.1, 54.2)	0.37
	Walking	32.1 (29.7, 34.5)	30.5 (27.9, 33.0)
	Very active	22.2 (19.4, 25.1)	18.4 (15.3, 21.5)

^aIncludes foods high in saturated fat and/or added sugars, added salt or low in fibre, for example, sweet biscuits, cakes, processed meats, confectionary, savoury pastries and potato chips

ISSN: 1748-5908