Thirsty? Choose Water! A regional perspective to promoting water consumption in secondary school students

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Kajons, Nicole
Gowland-Ella, Justine
Batchelor, Samantha
Kingon, Nina
David, Michael
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2023
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Abstract

Objective: Adolescents are high consumers of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), which contribute to overweight and obesity - a significant public health issue. Evidence suggests that replacing SSB with water and school-based interventions can reduce consumption. This study examines the acceptability of a previously trialled intervention (Thirsty? Choose Water!) in regional and remote secondary schools. Design: An open-label randomised controlled trial using a two-by-two factorial design tested the outcomes of a behavioural and/or environmental intervention on SSB and water consumption. Setting: Regional and remote secondary schools (public, catholic and independent) within the boundaries of two regional Local Health Districts within New South Wales. Participants: Twenty-four schools participated in the study. The target group was year 7 students (n 1640) - 72 % of eligible students completed baseline data. The study followed students into year 8 (n 1188) - 52 % of eligible students completed post-intervention data. Forty teachers undertook training to deliver the intervention. Results: Interventions showed high levels of acceptability. Students demonstrated changes in knowledge, attitudes and consumption behaviours. Multivariable ordinal logression analysis demonstrated that all interventions increased the odds of students increasing their water consumption (though not statistically significant). Conversely, the combined (OR: 0·75; 95 % CI: 0·59, 0·97) or environmental intervention (OR: 0·68; 95 % CI: 0·51, 0·90) had greater odds of reducing SSB consumption and was statistically significant. Conclusions: This study builds on recent Australian evidence regarding the impact of school-based interventions on water and SSB consumption. In this study, despite a minor intervention change, and the impacts of fires, floods and COVID-19 on study implementation, the interventions were highly regarded by the school communities with positive outcomes.

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Public Health Nutrition

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26

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11

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© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

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Biomedical and clinical sciences

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Science & Technology

Life Sciences & Biomedicine

Public, Environmental & Occupational Health

Nutrition & Dietetics

Randomised controlled trial

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Kajons, N; Gowland-Ella, J; Batchelor, S; Kingon, N; David, M, Thirsty? Choose Water! A regional perspective to promoting water consumption in secondary school students, Public Health Nutrition, 2023, 26 (11), pp. 2526-2538

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