Plants Optimizing Development Study
This study aims to explore the relationship between regular consumption of plant-based foods and children’s health, development, and cognitive abilities.
- 8-11 year old
Description
The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between regularly eating plant-based foods and children’s health, development, and thinking abilities. Your child will be asked to participate in a 3-month period or intervention where they will consume plant-based foods daily. The soy group will eat soy-based foods and snacks (e.g., soy milk, tofu, soy-based nuggets, snack bars). Meanwhile, the control group will have similar plant-based foods that are soy-free (e.g., plant milk, roasted chickpeas and chips, plant-based nuggets and tenders). Children have the option to choose which foods and flavors from their group that they’d like to eat.
Eligibility Criteria
8-11 year old
What’s Involved?
We will measure your child’s health using questionnaires, tests of attention and memory, and a body scan (DXA). We will also ask your child to provide us with urine, stool, and blood (optional) samples so we can better understand gut health and development. Your child’s participation will last 6 to 8 visits (between 30 minutes and 2 hours each) to the laboratory. If your child participates in the soy intervention, they will be provided with the option of continuing participation in the procedures for an additional 6 months.
Compensation
We will provide your child with compensation of $500 total as a check payment if they participate in procedures from visit 1 to visit 6. This is paid as $250 after visit 3, followed by another $250 after visit 6. If your child participates in the optional second phase of the study, we will provide you $100 following visit 7 and an additional $100 following visit 8.
Contact us to learn more
Please reach out to PODS-study@illinois.edu to participate!