Clinical trial NCT05061888: Free Living Food Waste Management and Diet Quality Improvement Using Smart Intervention and Food Image Application
Official title: Using the FoodImageTM App to Assess Smart Interventions Designed to Improve Nutrition & Reduce Food Waste
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Diet, Healthy
Keywords: Food Waste
Diet Quality
Stress Management
Food Intake
Lead sponsor: Pennington Biomedical Research Center
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans
name: Ohio State University
First posted: 2021-09-30
Enrollment: 46
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 62
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The primary aim of this study is to reduce household food waste and improve individual nutrition. This will be achieved using the FoodImageTM smartphone app 1, a novel method for measuring household food acquisition, food intake, and food waste decisions, to assess the efficacy of a smart intervention that targets food waste reduction and diet quality improvement. The intervention is designed to improve nutrition by offsetting intake of less nutritious foods with increased fresh fruit and vegetable (FV) intake while simultaneously reducing household food waste via strategies tailored to participating households.

Detailed description: Data collected will be used to:

1. Test the effects of free FV provision on: (a) household food waste levels, (b) total FV acquisition (free FV provision plus purchases post-intervention vs. pre-intervention FV purchases), and (c) the consumption of FV (Food Patterns Equivalents Database, FPED). We hypothesize that free FV provision will increase food waste, total FV acquisition, and diet quality (increase the Healthy Eating Index \[HEI\]). We will test these hypotheses by comparing baseline and follow-up data from participants randomly assigned to the control condition, which features free FV provision and a placebo (stress management) intervention not focused on food waste. Exploratory analyses will examine the effects on dietary energy intake and if the freely provided FV replace non-FV foods in the baseline diet.
2. Test if a smart intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV significantly reduces post-intervention food waste compared to the control group while increasing FV acquisition and consumption compared to pre-intervention baseline. We hypothesize that this smart intervention will increase total FV acquisition and FV consumption compared to baseline, and these increases are not expected to differ significantly from control. It is further hypothesized that those receiving the smart intervention will significantly reduce food waste compared to controls. Exploratory analyses will examine the extent to which the smart intervention had the intended effect of replacing less healthy foods with FV consumption.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Male or female, age 18-62 years
* Body mass index (BMI) 18.5 - 50 kg/m2, based on self-reported height and weight
* Ownership of an iPhone, which the participant is willing to use for the study
* Access to Apple ID, password, and email address and willing to use them in the course of the study
* Performs a majority of household food shopping and preparation
* If children are present in household, all children are between 6-18 years
* Able to meet the schedule demands for the study

Exclusion Criteria:

* Not able to use an iPhone
* Refusal or unable to use the smartphone app to collect data in free-living conditions
* Households that purchase groceries less than 1 time per week
* More than 2 children living in the household
* Pennington Biomedical Research Center employee
* Unwilling to sign consent to use web screener questions for data set and analysis.

Primary outcomes:
measure: The impact of free FV provision on levels of household food waste, measured in grams.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
measure: The impact of free FV provision on levels of household food waste, measured in calories.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
measure: The impact of free FV provision on household FV acquisition.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
measure: The impact of free FV provision on household FV intake.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
measure: Determine if a smart intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV significantly increases FV acquisition compared to pre-intervention baseline.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
measure: Determine if a smart intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV significantly increases FV intake compared to pre-intervention baseline.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
measure: Determine if a smart intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV significantly reduces household level food waste, measured in grams, compared to a control intervention.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
measure: Determine if a smart intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV significantly reduces household level food waste, measured in calories, compared to a control intervention.
timeFrame: 4 weeks
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Baton Rouge
country: United States
facility: Pennington Biomedical Research Center
state: Louisiana
Study officials:
affiliation: Pennington Biomedical
name: Corby K Martin, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: