The Veggies4myHeart Team was present at the first edition of the International Congress on Food, Nutrition & Public Health (ICFNH), which took place on November 17th at the premises of the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) in Lisbon.
Professor Cátia Pontes presented the oral communication “Can a digital game promote vegetable consumption? – parents’ perception of a food and nutrition education tool”, which aimed to expose parents’ perception of the impact of the digital game “Veggies4myHeart” on promoting the consumption of vegetables.
In the 2021/22 school year, 210 children from 8 kindergartens in Leiria participated in the project. The digital game “Veggies4myHeart” was the pedagogical tool in the five food and nutrition education (FNE) sessions. After the intervention, parents were asked to voluntarily complete a questionnaire to monitor their perception of vegetable consumption and the impact of the digital game as an EAN pedagogical tool.
The sample for this work included 32 parents who responded to the online questionnaire. Of these, 20 reported that their child did not change their vegetable consumption after the Veggies4myHeart project intervention. The relationship between the frequency with which children mentioned the project at home and their consumption of vegetables was analyzed. It was possible to observe that 22 children mentioned the project frequently, and 11 increased their consumption of vegetables.
Regarding parents’ perception of digital games as FNE pedagogical tools, 25 parents considered digital games beneficial. Parents of children who participated in the Veggies4myHeart project did not feel their children changed their vegetable consumption after participating. However, everyone found the game helpful for FNE. Finally, the importance of involving children’s families in the project and understanding the barriers to the consumption of vegetables by preschool children in their homes was highlighted.
