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Abstract
Past research has shown that older adults in Northeast Georgia participating in the Older Americans Act Nutrition Program (OANP) do not consume the recommended number of servings each day of fruits and vegetables (Aspinwall 2000, Wade 2003). To address this problem, we conducted a fruit and vegetable education intervention in various Senior Centers participating in OANP throughout Georgia. Seventy-three participants completed the intervention (mean age = 76.4 1.1 years). Food frequency questionnaires assessed participant consumption patterns of 25 fruit and vegetable groupings at pre- and post-test. A high percentage of participants reported barriers to consumption at pre-test. At post-test, increased consumption trends were evident for mean intakes of three categories of targeted fruit and vegetable groups, intake of targeted fruit items, and total fruit and vegetable servings per day. Intake of melon increased significantly, and more participants reported knowledge of fruits and vegetables after the intervention (p=0.04).