2.1. Study Design and Settings
SECONDARY
This prospective longitudinal intervention study was carried out between the 2018/2019 and 2020/2021 school years as part of the pilot project “School Meals and Fruit and Vegetable Intake in Schools With and Without a Garden” under the Horizon 2020 project “Strengthening European Food Chain Sustainability by Quality and Procurement” (Strength2Food, H2020-SFS-2015-2, contract number 678024). The implementation of the pilot project in the selected primary school was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health (100-21/16-8) and the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education and the Education and Teacher Training Agency (602-01/16-01/00388). All study protocols adhered to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and were approved by the Ethics Committee of the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb (380-59-10106-19-11/307).The selection of children from primary schools in the city of Zagreb was carried out according to the methodology of the project, which is described in detail elsewhere [Changes in the preferences and consumption of fruit and vegetables were the primary outcomes of the study, measured before and after the three years of intervention and analyzed in comparison with the control group. The secondary outcomes of the study were the associations between children’s fruit and vegetable consumption and preferences and their sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics. The present study shows the primary and secondary outcomes concerning children’s fruit and vegetable preferences.