Italy has one of the highest levels of childhood overweight and obesity in Europe. Therefore, preventing children from becoming overweight is a major public health challenge. Here, we used a mixed-method research approach – including a quasi-experimental design and three surveys – to create a formative evaluation of a social marketing campaign on healthy nutrition and lifestyle in Italian primary school children. The social marketing campaign was organized around the 4 Ps of the marketing mix (product: the educational activities; place: the involved schools and supermarkets; promotion: the in-person and technology-based communication; and price: hours spent by the targeted children in fulfilling the educational activities). The campaign involved primary-school children across four Italian cities. The findings suggest that social marketing education campaigns can be effective tools to improve children’s knowledge about healthy food and lifestyle, reduce their sedentary behavior, and increase their consumption of healthy food. Also, increasing children’s acceptance of healthful nourishment is a valuable tool to improve the dietary habits of the entire family. With relation to the educational program assessment method, this study can inform societal interventions especially those involving children through the integration of different qualitative and quantitative research methods, which collect data from different subjects and perspectives.

意大利是欧洲儿童超重和肥胖率最高的国家之一。因此，防止儿童超重是一项重大的公共卫生挑战。在这里，我们使用了一种混合方法研究方法——包括准实验设计和三项调查——对意大利小学生健康营养和生活方式的社会营销活动进行了形成性评估。社会营销活动是围绕营销组合的 4P 组织的（产品：教育活动；地点：涉及的学校和超市；促销：面对面和基于技术的交流；以及价格：目标儿童在完成教育活动上所花费的时间）。该活动涉及意大利四个城市的小学生。研究结果表明，社会营销教育活动可以成为提高儿童对健康食品和生活方式的认识、减少久坐行为和增加健康食品消费的有效工具。此外，增加儿童对健康营养的接受度是改善整个家庭饮食习惯的宝贵工具。关于教育计划评估方法，本研究可以通过整合不同的定性和定量研究方法，从不同的主题和角度收集数据，为社会干预，特别是涉及儿童的干预提供信息。