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Effect of School Garden Programmes on Vegetable Consumption among Primary School Pupils in Nigeria

Abstract

Inadequate consumption of vegetables among children is an important nutrition and public health concern because vegetables provide essential vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre, and other nutrients required for healthy growth and development. Primary school pupils may have low vegetable consumption because of limited availability at home, food preferences, inadequate nutrition knowledge, parental influence, and limited exposure to vegetable cultivation and preparation. School garden programmes provide an opportunity to expose pupils to vegetable production while combining practical gardening activities with nutrition education and healthy eating promotion. Through planting, cultivating, harvesting, and consuming vegetables, pupils may develop greater familiarity with vegetables and improve their willingness to include them in their diets. Against this background, this study investigates the effect of school garden programmes on vegetable consumption among primary school pupils in Nigeria. The study will be anchored on Social Cognitive Theory, the Social Ecological Model, and Experiential Learning Theory. Social Cognitive Theory explains how pupils' behaviours may be influenced by observational learning, self-efficacy, environmental reinforcement, and direct participation in gardening activities. The Social Ecological Model emphasizes the interaction between individual preferences, family influences, school environments, community conditions, and food availability in shaping children's dietary behaviours. Experiential Learning Theory emphasizes learning through direct participation, reflection, practical experience, and application, making it particularly relevant to school gardening activities. Collectively, these theoretical perspectives provide a suitable framework for explaining how participation in school garden programmes may influence vegetable consumption among primary school pupils in Nigeria. The study will adopt a quantitative quasi-experimental or analytical cross-sectional research design. The study population will comprise pupils enrolled in selected public and private primary schools across Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique will be used to select geopolitical zones, states, local government areas, schools, classes, and eligible pupils. School garden programmes will be assessed using indicators such as availability of school gardens, duration of programme participation, frequency of gardening activities, types of vegetables cultivated, pupil participation in planting and harvesting, availability of gardening materials, teacher involvement, nutrition education, garden maintenance, harvesting activities, and opportunities for tasting or consuming harvested vegetables. Vegetable consumption will be assessed using indicators such as frequency of vegetable intake, variety of vegetables consumed, portion or serving frequency, willingness to eat vegetables, acceptance of newly introduced vegetables, consumption of school-grown vegetables, and dietary patterns reported by pupils or caregivers. Data will be collected using structured questionnaires, age-appropriate dietary assessment tools, food-frequency questionnaires, 24-hour dietary recalls where appropriate, school garden observation checklists, programme attendance records, school meal records, and relevant nutrition education documents. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize pupils' characteristics, participation in school garden programmes, and patterns of vegetable consumption. Inferential statistical techniques, including chi-square tests, t-tests, correlation analysis, and logistic or multiple regression analysis where appropriate, will be used to determine the effect of school garden programmes on vegetable consumption. Where a quasi-experimental design is adopted, vegetable consumption before and after implementation of the school garden programme may be compared with that of a comparison group to determine changes associated with the intervention. Diagnostic tests will also be conducted to assess the reliability, validity, and robustness of the findings. The study is expected to find that school garden programmes have a significant positive effect on vegetable consumption among primary school pupils in Nigeria. Pupils who participate in school gardening are expected to demonstrate greater familiarity with vegetables, increased willingness to taste and consume vegetables, improved knowledge of vegetable production and nutritional benefits, and higher frequency or variety of vegetable consumption compared with pupils who do not participate in such programmes. Hands-on activities such as planting, watering, cultivating, harvesting, and preparing vegetables may increase pupils' interest in healthy foods and strengthen their sense of ownership of the foods they produce. Integration of gardening with nutrition education and school meals may further reinforce healthy eating behaviours. However, inadequate land, water shortages, limited gardening materials, poor maintenance, seasonal conditions, insufficient teacher training, school funding constraints, and parental food preferences may limit programme effectiveness. The study therefore expects well-supported, practical, age-appropriate, and sustained school garden programmes to contribute significantly to improved vegetable consumption among primary school pupils in Nigeria. The study is expected to contribute to the literature on school garden programmes, vegetable consumption, child nutrition, school health, nutrition education, dietary behaviour, food literacy, and public health in Nigeria. The findings will provide useful information to the Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, state ministries of education and health, primary school authorities, nutritionists, teachers, parent organizations, community agricultural extension workers, development partners, and policymakers regarding strategies for improving children's dietary practices. The study will also provide evidence-based recommendations for integrating school gardens into school health and nutrition programmes, strengthening practical nutrition education, providing schools with gardening resources and technical support, involving parents and communities in school food initiatives, and promoting sustainable vegetable production and consumption among primary school pupils across Nigeria.

Keywords: School garden programmes, vegetable consumption, primary school pupils, child nutrition, nutrition education, school health, dietary practices, food literacy, healthy eating, Nigeria, public health.