Healthy eating habits and regular physical activity play a key role in child health. A regular meal pattern with higher amounts of fruits and vegetables is recommended for children to support favorable growth patterns and promote optimal health and well-being. Fruits and vegetables are important in the diet because they are nutrient-dense, offering few calories and lots of vitamins, minerals, fiber and other nutrients.
Iowa HHS created the Pick a Better Snack Program for children ages 5 – 9 years to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables and encourage active lifestyles. The program offers many benefits to children, including:
Exposure to new foods in a safe, supportive environment
Positive experience with fruits and vegetables through hands-on activities
Taste-testing new and familiar fruits and vegetables
Education about where food comes from and how it grows
Opportunity to add minutes of physical activity to the day
The Pick a Better Snack (PABS) Program has been evaluated many times since it originated and is deemed evidence-based.
2011-2012 Evaluation: A rigorous impact evaluation was published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The results were positive, including a statistically significant increase in children's daily at-home consumption of fruits and vegetables combined, as reported by parents of third-grade students, for two intervention groups when compared to the control group. (PABS was formerly called BASICS.)
2022-2023 Evaluation: Parents of children receiving Pick a Better Snack were surveyed before and after the program. The results were positive overall, with parents reporting improvements in their child’s fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity. This document highlights key findings from the study.
2024-2025 Evaluation: This evaluation surveyed second and third-grade students before and after completing Pick a Better Snack. Positive outcomes varied by school district, but overall, fruit preference and consumption increased. Students were physically active more often as well.Data from the evaluation is available in this report.
The Pick a Better Snack program was designed for K-3rd grade elementary classrooms, but can be used for a variety of purposes:
School classrooms (Supports science and health education standards!)
After-school clubs or programs
Summer youth programs
4-H or other youth education
Local food promotion and education
Other health promotion and prevention programs
The evidence-based program consists of monthly fruit and vegetable lessons, with take-home materials for parents and caregivers. The materials are available on this page.
Lessons – Deliver the 30-minute lesson, including the food tasting and physical activity. The program produced positive outcomes with the delivery of 7-9 monthly lessons per school year. Choose one set of lessons per school year, rotating through the three sets.
Family Newsletters – Send home the corresponding newsletter after each lesson and encourage students to return it for recognition or a reward. The bingo game encourages children to eat fruits and vegetables and be active with their family.
Stickers– Give each student a sticker after the lesson. The sticker will prompt parents to talk with their child about what they learned and tried at school.
The Pick a Better Snack Program can be supplemented with coloring pages and fact sheets, or these materials may be used as a stand-alone with other initiatives. They were optional as part of the evidence-based program.
Coloring Pages – Send home coloring pages with students for a creative activity focused on fruits and vegetables.
Fact Sheets – Find a fact sheet for most of the featured foods and post it in the classroom.
Iowa HHS recommends making as few changes to the program as possible. If needed, programs may move the lessons around and use the alternate tasting options in the lesson. Substantially modifying the lessons or creating new lessons is not considered part of the Pick a Better Snack Program, and the program name should not be used in such cases.
If you are interested in starting your own Pick a Better Snack Program, you may use any of the materials on this page. Electronic PDF files may be used for nutrition education purposes, without edits, and are considered part of the “public domain.” For those implementing the program in Iowa, please contact Suzy Wilson at suzy.wilson@hhs.iowa.gov.
Iowa HHS hosts a Community of Practice for Pick a Better Snack educators. The group meets online regularly during the school year to support one another with program implementation. If you are interested in joining the Community of Practice, please contact Suzy Wilson at suzy.wilson@hhs.iowa.gov.
The Pick a Better Snack lessons support Iowa's Academic Standards for Health Education and Science. The specific standards are listed in each lesson. Learn more about the connections to the science standards and health education standards.
The lessons are designed to be taught by a nutrition educator in the classroom once a month. Prior to teaching the Pick a Better Snack lessons, review this document for training and guidance. While the lesson in this video is a little shorter, it provides an example of a typical lesson and highlights the main components.
Once students complete their last Pick a Better Snack lesson, consider issuing a program graduate certificate. Fill in the name of each child on the editable PDF to recognize students at the end of the program.
Children need at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity every day to support overall health. Most children fall short of this goal. Lack of physical activity can impact a child's ability to do well in school. It can affect their memory, attention span, school attendance and grades.
Each Pick a Better Snack lesson includes a classroom physical activity break. These activities may be swapped out for other classroom physical activity breaks, such as those included in the booklets below. The booklets are also intended as a resource for classroom teachers or others looking for short physical activities for youth.
List items for Classroom Physical Activity Break Booklets
Check out these booklets for classroom physical activity breaks that can be included in the Pick a Better Snack lessons or as part of the normal classroom routine. Along with recess and physical education (P.E.) class, a 3-5 minute "brain break" can help students be more active.
Monthly newsletters are sent home with students to give families ideas for eating healthy and staying active on a tight budget. Newsletters are based on the produce featured in the monthly Pick a Better Snack lessons.
Year 1 (Use these newsletters with the Year 1 Pick a Better Snack Lessons)
Print these 1.5-inch, round stickers for each student to receive with the lesson. They can help students talk to their parents or caregivers about the food they tried in class.
Have fun with these fruit and vegetable coloring pages! The coloring pages support the Pick a Better Snack monthly lessons. Nutrition educators can use them in the classroom to ease transition times or with after-school and summer nutrition education sessions to reinforce healthy messages. A nutrition educator may choose to just send the pages home, too. The pages were designed to encourage parents and children to color together!
Fruit and vegetable fact sheets are available for many of the featured and alternative produce items. These can be used in the classroom with the Pick a Better Snack Program or as part of other programs, such as the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.
