Oral Presentation Australian & New Zealand Obesity Society 2015 Annual Scientific Meeting

Impacts of Jamie’s Ministry of Food Victoria mobile kitchen program (#88)

Jessica Herbert 1 , Anna Flego 1 , Lisa Gibbs 2 , Dana Young 2 , Elizabeth Waters 2 , Laura Nicols 1 , Boyd Swinburn 3 4 , Mohammadreza Mohebbi 5 , Marj Moodie 1
  1. Deakin Health Economics, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  2. Jack Brockhoff Child Health & Wellbeing Program, , Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne , Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  4. School of Population Health, Faculty of Medical, and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
  5. Deakin Biostatistics Unit, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Jamie’s Ministry of Food mobile kitchen in Victoria provided a five-week community-based cooking skills course. Delivered as part of a Victorian State Government initiative, Healthy Together Victoria (HTV), the mobile kitchen moves between communities targeting cooking skills, confidence and improving food and nutrition knowledge. This paper presents the impacts of the mobile kitchen specifically focusing on cooking confidence, healthy eating and cooking behaviours.

A quasi-experimental longitudinal evaluation with a wait-list control group was conducted. Intervention participants were measured three times: pre (T1) and post intervention (T2) and at six-month follow-up (T3). The control group was measured twice: five weeks before (T1), and at program commencement (T2). Data was analysed using a linear mixed model approach. Cohen’s d effect-size has been calculated.

Mobile kitchen participants were measured in five Victorian communities. The program resulted in improvements in all cooking confidence measures over time in the intervention group (all P<0.001 and effect-size range: 0.5-1.0) with a significant group by time interaction effects (P<0.001). Intervention participants made sustained significant improvements in their mean self-reported daily intake of vegetables (0.54 serves per day, P=0.03, effect-size: 0.21), fruit (0.46 serves per day, P=0.05, effect-size: 0.21) and reductions take-away consumption (-0.20 serves per week, P=0.01, effect-size: -0.33), compared to small or no changes in the control group. The control group made a small significant increase in vegetable consumption between T1 and T2 (0.22 serves per day, P=0.05). Six months after the program the intervention group improved in some cooking attitudes, knowledge and behaviours, for example cooking a meal from basic ingredients, however significant difference between intervention and control groups were not found.

Findings suggest the mobile kitchen program resulted in sustained improvements in participants’ cooking confidence and healthy eating behaviours. Results may be influenced by other health promotion activities in the community as part of HTV.