Abstract
The Internet continues to serve as an ideal venue for health education interventions promoting behavior change. Due to the progressive expansion in online education programs, new methodologies that contribute across health education and program planning continuums are needed. This ecologic study investigated the change in student dietary behav-ior and food choices following an original online education intervention that introduced the Mediterranean diet (MD) in a community college in Houston, Texas. A non-probability convenience sample (n=65) provided pretest-posttest data measuring knowledge of and attitudes toward the MD. The intervention was incorporated into an undergraduate nutrition course, delivered entirely online and evaluated using the Mediterranean Diet Quality Index (KIDMED) survey. The intervention improved total participant population from a mean KIDMED score of poor (4.12) to a mean score of high (8.45) indicating an increase in knowledge of MD dietary guidelines and a positive shift in favorable attitude, particularly among men. This study provides a unique pedagogical illustration of online learn-ing that introduce a specific evidence-based dietary guideline to a college student population. A detailed discussion of findings and lessons learned is provided.
Highlights
The Internet is an ideal venue for health education interventions promoting behavior change
With online learning emerging as an ideal nutrition education tool2and increases in online education enrollment, effective delivery of Internet-Health Promotion Perspectives, Vol 5, No 2, 2015; P:92-97 based nutrition education is a key objective of public health educators and dietitians
The intervention did not collect participant height, weight, or BMI. This information may have been useful in correlational observations, identification of extraneous variables, and in search of unintended findings, avoiding these metrics was necessary to preserve the authenticity of the nutrition course versus the look and feel of a research setting
Summary
The Internet is an ideal venue for health education interventions promoting behavior change. A meta-analysis[1] investigated Internet-based interventions and identified characteristics best suited to health behavior change among college populations. The Internet continues to serve as an ideal venue for health education interventions promoting behavior change. Methods: This ecologic study investigated the change in student dietary behavior and food choices following an original online education intervention that introduced the Mediterranean diet (MD) in a community college in Houston, Texas. Results: The intervention improved total participant population from a mean KIDMED score of poor (4.12) to a mean score of high (8.45) indicating an increase in knowledge of MD dietary guidelines and a positive shift in favorable attitude, among men. Conclusion: This study provides a unique pedagogical illustration of online learning that introduce a specific evidence-based dietary guideline to a college student population. A detailed discussion of findings and lessons learned is provided
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