NCT04168632: OPTIMAT

Fostering Healthy and Sustainable Diets Through School Meals

Completed NA Last updated 4 February 2022

What this trial tests

NA trial testing OPTIMAT in Food Habits in 1,635 participants. Completed in 30 August 2019.

Timeline

7 February 2019

Primary endpoint
30 May 2019

30 August 2019

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Karolinska Institutet
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	na
Design	single group
Masking	none
Primary purpose	prevention
Enrollment	1,635
Start date	7 February 2019
Primary completion	30 May 2019
Estimated completion	30 August 2019
Sites	1 location across Sweden

Drugs / interventions tested

• OPTIMAT

Conditions studied

• Food Habits — all drugs for Food Habits →

Sponsor

Karolinska Institutet

Who can join

Adults 6 to 16, any sex, with Food Habits. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

School meals have considerable potential to shape children's diets and reduce the climate impact of meals. This study applies linear programming for developing and implementing a climate friendly, nutritious and affordable school lunch menu. The new menu plan will be compared to the baseine menu during a 4-week intervention trial. The outcomes will be food waste, consumption, and pupils' satisfaction with the meals before and after introducing the new meal plan by interrupted time series analysis. Our hypothesis is that school meals can be optimized to be nutritious and more climate friendly, without negatively affecting acceptance, food waste and cost.

A number of primary schools in one Swedish municipality with the same menu plan for all schools participated in the study. Their current meal supply was recorded in the form of a food list including amount and cost of each item over a 4-week period. This list was then optimized with linear programming to be as similar as possible to the baseline diet but with a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. No new foods were introduced and none were removed from the list. Nutritionally adequacy was ensured by included constraints into the model. The optimized food list was handed to a professional meal planner and a new menu plan was developed based on the revised food list. Data on food waste and consumption was collected daily during a baseline period of four weeks, and during the four-week intervention period. School lunch satisfaction was assessed twice with an online questionnaire at baseline and during the intervention. After the end of intervention, students and meal staff were interviewed regarding their experiences with the new meals.

Publications & conference data

3 peer-reviewed publications reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Sustainable and acceptable school meals through optimization analysis: an intervention study.
   Eustachio Colombo P, Patterson E, Lindroos AK, Parlesak A, et al · · 2020 · cited 37× · PMID 32580743 · DOI 10.1186/s12937-020-00579-z
2. Barriers and facilitators to successful implementation of sustainable school meals: a qualitative study of the OPTIMAT™-intervention.
   Eustachio Colombo P, Elinder LS, Patterson E, Parlesak A, et al · · 2021 · cited 15× · PMID 34217304 · DOI 10.1186/s12966-021-01158-z
3. Barriers and Facilitators to Successful Implementation of Sustainable School Meals: A Qualitative Study of the OPTIMATTM-Intervention
   Colombo PE, Elinder LS, Patterson E, Parlesak A, et al · · 2021 · DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-139427/v1