The effect of a human nutrition class on the fruit and vegetable intake of college students

This study assessed the effectiveness of an 11-week nutrition class for college students to increase fruit and vegetable intake, move toward the maintenance Stage of Change and increase self-efficacy in ability to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.;A convenience sample of 102 college students enrolled in a midwestern public university participated in the study. A pre and post - test quasi-experimental design was used and participants were assigned to groups based on the class in which they were enrolled: experimental group (Human Nutrition class) and control group (American History class).;The experimental group participants attended a weekly human nutrition class with activities to reinforce fruit and vegetable benefits that included analysis of students' three-day food diaries, discussion of the impact on personal food choices, and the evaluation of popular claims and theories related to nutrition. The control group's only participation was the completion of the pre- and post-questionnaire.;Main outcome measures were each participant's pre- and post-questionnaire data was compared to determine if there was a change in responses over the time period. Both groups completed a 19-item food frequency questionnaire and a four-item health behavior questionnaire at the beginning and end of the semester. The short dietary assessment instrument used in this study, the "All-Day Screener" Quick Food Survey questionnaire, was a food-frequency questionnaire developed by staff at the Risk Factor Monitoring and Methods Branch in the Applied Research Program of the National Cancer Institute. The health behavior theory questions focused on the Transtheoretical Model Stage of Change, based on the participants' perception of readiness to increase intake of fruits and vegetables and the Social Cognitive Theory of self-efficacy, based on participants' confidence in their ability to eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables.;The fruit and vegetable intake was analyzed with SAS program (version 9.1, SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC). The Stages of Change and self-efficacy responses were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences for Windows (version 17.0, 2009, SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL). The null hypothesis was rejected at the 0.05 level of significance.;Mann Whitney U t-test for equivalency of groups found no statistical difference in pre-test scores between the experimental group and control group for all dependent variables: fruit and vegetable intake, level of Stage of Change, or self-efficacy. There was no statistically significant difference in overall fruit and vegetable intake in either group from the pre- to post-questionnaire (mean +/- SE) (all P>0.05). The Mann-Whitney U test for difference in groups from pretest to post-test for stage of change for vegetable intake was significantly higher for the experimental group than for the control group (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the experimental group or between the two groups from pre- to post-test scores, for Stage of Change for fruit or for self-efficacy to increase fruit or vegetables (all P > 0.05).;Although the experimental group increased in their readiness for change in vegetable intake, there was no significant difference in the other dependent variables. An 11-week intervention alone does not appear to be sufficient for affecting the students' eating habits. This concurs with other research that shows that behavioral change takes time and a more in-depth approach has the potential to increase fruit and vegetable intake in a college population.