Abstract
Background: Despite the known health benefits of dairy products, their daily consumption continues to decline, particularly in pre-adolescents and adolescents. It is therefore of interest to develop effective strategies to increase dairy intake and education in this population. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of the web-based component of a school-based dairy nutrition intervention called WhyDairy?. Through analysis of popular website content, traversal paths and timing of website access, we aimed to investigate how students used this website and to identify areas of improvement for future research. Method: Grade 7 students (n=115) in 10 Southwestern Ontario schools received the WhyDairy? intervention, which included three classroom visits and a website that could be voluntarily accessed. Website use data was collected using Google Analytics. The intervention delivered to control schools did not have a website component and is therefore not described in this report. Results: The website was voluntarily accessed by 33.6% of students participating in the intervention. Almost 70% of website visits occurred within two days following a classroom visit. Popular content included games and interactive pages. While there was moderate engagement with the website during the intervention period, there was poor engagement during the follow-up period. Conclusion: The utilization of the WhyDairy? website represents students’ interest in independently furthering their knowledge and student engagement with a web-based component of a dairy nutrition intervention. Future work should investigate students’ motivations for accessing the website and how to encourage prolonged website use.
Highlights
Dairy products are a convenient source of vitamins, minerals, and protein necessary in the diets or pre-adolescents and adolescents [1, 2]
Website data during the six to eight-week intervention period were tracked for all schools who received the intervention (Table 2)
One-third of our intervention study population voluntarily used the website during the eight-week intervention period, but activity almost exclusively occurred within two-days following a research visit
Summary
Dairy products are a convenient source of vitamins, minerals, and protein necessary in the diets or pre-adolescents and adolescents [1, 2]. Despite the known health benefits of dairy products, their daily consumption continues to decline in many populations, in pre-adolescents and adolescents. School-based interventions may be enhanced through the use of strategies that reach beyond the classroom, such as specialized web-based programs [7, 8]. Nutrition sessions can be taught to all students in the classroom, and students can be directed to web-based programs that they can access from home or other locations These programs could be designed to supplement the material taught in class, using content that appeals to youth including games and other engagement strategies [9]. Despite the known health benefits of dairy products, their daily consumption continues to decline, in pre-adolescents and adolescents. It is of interest to develop effective strategies to increase dairy intake and education in this population
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