(OR21-06-24) Family-Centered Diet Intervention to Reduce Added Sugar Consumption in Latino Children

Objectives: While reducing added sugars is known to be beneficial for children, the most effective way to achieve this change is not known. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of a dietitian led, family-focused intervention using both food replacement and guided grocery shopping (GGS), to reduce sugar consumption and its impact on children’s diet quality.

Methods: This substudy, embedded within the NAFLD Prevention trial (ClinicalTrials No. NCT05292352), includes Hispanic families with a child participant aged 6-9 years enrolled who had completed up to 3 24-hour food recalls (parent proxy) at baseline and after 12 months. The family-centered diet intervention rooted in Social Cognitive Theory, included nutrition counseling using motivational interviewing by a bilingual/bicultural dietitian, home removal of high-sugar foods, financial assistance for food replacement with family-preferred low or no-sugar alternatives (once a week in the first month) and GGS 3 times thereafter (months 3, 6 and 9). Paired t-tests compared intake changes over time between the groups.

Results: 8 subjects were included in the analysis (3 controls, 5 interventions). At the 12-month follow-up, participants in the intervention group compared to the control group reported a decrease in total calories (-270 vs +163 kcal), total sugar (-35.9 vs +20.6 g), and added sugar (-25.9 vs +7.4 g). Subjects in the intervention group also reported a slight increase in saturated fat (+0.11) and a decrease in fiber (-2.69 g). Diet quality improved in both groups with a greater increase in the Healthy Eating Index score among those in the intervention (+6.90 vs 0.94, respectively). None of the differences were statistically significant at a p-value of < 0.05.

Conclusions: Interim analysis of the data suggests that a family-centered nutrition counseling intervention that uses evidence-based counseling methods, and incorporates family food replacement and GGS, results in a reduction in sugar intake in children aged 6-9 years, a critical time for nutritional improvement. Further analysis as more participants completes their follow-up assessments will be needed to confirm these initial findings.

Funding Sources: National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health funding was used to support this analysis.