Pilot Intervention Using Food Challenges and Video Technology for Promoting Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of a Social Cognitive Theory-based intervention on cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes in a college nutrition course.

Design: A pre-post quasi-experimental design.

Setting: Large metropolitan university.

Participants: College students (n = 138) aged 18-40 years.

Interventions: Students participated in weekly food challenges during a 15-week nutrition course to apply nutrition knowledge, develop self-efficacy and promote positive behavior change. Food challenges were implemented by a guided goal-setting strategy. Cooking videos, which modeled important nutrition-related skills, accompanied each challenge. Students independently selected 2-goal options to implement weekly and wrote a reflection about their experiences.

Main Outcome Measures: Cognitive outcomes (nutrition and cooking self-efficacy), affective outcome (cooking attitudes), and behavioral outcomes (fruit and vegetable consumption).

Analysis: Descriptive statistics and paired sample t tests.

Results: Analyses showed significant increases in cognitive outcomes (produce consumption self-efficacy [P = 0.004], cooking self-efficacy [P = 0.002], using fruit/vegetables and seasoning self-efficacy [P = 0.001]) and behavioral outcomes (fruit consumption [P < 0.001], and vegetable consumption [P < 0.001]).

Conclusion And Implications: This pilot study suggested a framework for behavioral change, grounded in constructs central to Social Cognitive Theory, that simplified the goal-setting process (by using guided goal setting) and used video technology to decrease the cost of implementation.