Intergenerational mealtime (intervention + follow-up): Intergenerational lunchtime at an intentional intergenerational dining room 4 days a week for 8 weeks. Once this period is over, this group will move on to a follow-up phase that will last for another 8 weeks, during which they will eat 5 days a week in different dining rooms with their generational peers, as they had been doing up to the time of the intervention. Finally, they will undergo a last follow-up period of about 2 weeks.
Intergenerational mealtime (wait + intervention): Waiting period consisting of 8 weeks (while Intervention Group #1 is using the intergenerational dining room). During this period toddlers and older people will eat lunch 5 days a week with their generational peers in separate dining rooms as they have been doing before the intervention. They will then move to eating together lunch 4 days a week for 8 weeks in the intergenerational dining room. Once this period is over they will enter a final follow-up phase for about 2 weeks during which they will go back to eat in generationally separate dining rooms.
Study summary
The goal of this study is to find out whether having children and older people who attend an intergenerational center eating lunch together on a regular basis may be an improvement over continuing to eat lunch with their generational peers in separate dining rooms at the center.
Specifically, the study analyzes the functioning and potential impact of an intergenerational dining room in terms of healthy eating, nutrition, self-evaluation of health and well-being, relational care, nutritional knowledge, and intergenerational attitudes. For this purpose, it sets up, in an intergenerational center, a dining room attended by children aged 2-3 years and older people aged 75 years and older who had previously been taking their lunch in separate dining rooms at the center.
The main questions this study aims to answer are:
* Does eating lunch at the intergenerational dining room improve the intake of healthy foods by children and older people compared to eating at their usual separate dining rooms with their peers?
* Does this type of intergenerational dining room serve as a space for nutritional education of children and older people?
* Does the experience of eating together have a positive influence in terms of children's attitudes towards older people and vice versa?
Eligibility
Sex
ALL
Min age
2 Years
Max age
—
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion Criteria (older people):
* Informed consent signed by each participant or his/her legal representative.
* Eating autonomy: Ability to feed oneself without continuous assistance from another person.
* Expected stay at the Intergenerational Center until July 2025.
* Negative certificate of Sexual Offenses (mandatory in case of contact with minors).
* Screening for nutritional risk, dysphagia and oral health: Exclusion of persons with severe untreated malnutrition, severe dysphagia or oral problems preventing chewing.
* Adequate cognitive status: mild or moderate cognitive impairment (rating ≤5 on the Global Deterioration Scale - GDS).
Inclusion Criteria (toddlers):
* Informed consent: Signature of the legal guardian authorizing participation in the study.
* Child's assent: Positive expression of willingness to participate.
* Feeding autonomy: Ability to eat without continuous assistance from an adult.
* Expected permanence in the Intergenerational Center until July 2025.
Exclusion Criteria (older adults):
* Advanced cognitive impairment (GDS \> 5) affecting comprehension and social interaction.
* Severe dysphagia or oral health problems preventing normal feeding.
* Unstable medical conditions that limit intergenerational dining attendance.
* History of aggressive behavior or history of refusal to interact with children.
* Lack of consent or refusal to participate in any of the study assessments.
Exclusion Criteria (toddlers):
* Need for ongoing feeding assistance.
* Severe medical conditions affecting feeding or social participation (e.g. severe metabolic disease).
* Expectation of transfer or departure from the Intergenerational Center prior to completion of the study.
Primary outcome measure(s)
Intake of healthy foods by children and older people — Day-by-day change in leftovers from baseline to final follow-up (18 weeks) Application of the Comstock method for the assessment of leftovers through photographing each dish after ingestion and calculating the proportion of waste (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, \& 100%).
Nutritional education — Baseline, 8 weeks, 16 weeks and 18 weeks Ad hoc test for assessing nutritional knowledge (identification and classification of foods, and discrimination between frequently and sporadically consumed foods) using the Nutriplato®. A set of five nutritional education activities is used to test nutritional knowledge among older adults (as toddlers' tutors) and toddlers. The number of successes and failures in each activity is assessed at different times throughout the intervention period.
Toddlers' attitudes towards older people — Baseline, 8 weeks, 16 weeks and 18 weeks A Visual Analog Scale (Young Children's Views of Older People) with original illustrations depicting images of older people according to a set of 11 bipolar pairs of adjectives (e.g., slow-fast, dull-exciting) will be presented to toddlers for them to locate their current attitudes towards older people. For each pair of adjectives ranging from -25 (extremely negative) to +25 (extremely positive) a mean global score will be calculated. Higher scores will indicate more positive attitudes towards older people.
Older people's attitudes towards toddlers — Baseline, 8 weeks, 16 weeks and 18 weeks Semantic differential with 9 pairs of bipolar adjectives with Likert-type responses (4 options). For each pair of adjectives ranging from -4 (extremely negative) to +4 (extremely positive) a mean global score will be calculated. Higher scores will indicate more positive attitudes towards toddlers.
Older people's attitudes about intergenerational exchanges — Baseline, 8 weeks, 16 weeks and 18 weeks Intergenerational Exchanges Attitude Scale , including 13 statements in two subscales ("Attributes to children" and "Relationships between older adults and children" subscales), each rated by older people along a 4-point Likert scale. This format allocates points from 4 (completely agree) to 1 (completely disagree). Higher scores indicate a more positive attitude in relation to intergenerational exchanges.
Trial sites (1)
Facility
City
Region
Status
Centro Intergeneracional de Referencia de Macrosad
This page summarises publicly available registry data for informational purposes — not medical advice. Eligibility is determined by each study team; patients should discuss participation with their clinician.
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