Enhancing Knowledge Translation in Nutrition Through a Healthy Eating Blog

Enhancing Knowledge Translation in Nutrition Through a Healthy Eating Blog: a Randomized Controlled Trial

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of an evidence-based healthy eating blog on dietary behaviors of mothers

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Healthy
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Healthy eating blog

Detailed Description

Mothers randomised to the experimental group were exposed to one weekly blog post for 6 months. Blog posts focus on the improvement of dairy products as well as vegetables and fruits consumption targeting five food skills categories: (1) knowledge about food, nutrition and cooking; (2) planning of healthy meals, and for including children to develop their food skills; (3) conceptualizing outcomes; (4) mechanical techniques for food preparation; (5) perception of food characteristics. Each post included a step-by-step recipe developed by the research team and featuring dairy products, vegetables and fruits. Recipes were described textually and also using pictures. Twenty-six posts were created over the six-month intervention. Participants randomised to the control group were not exposed to the healthy eating blog. The primary outcome is the daily intakes of dairy products, vegetables and fruits. The secondary outcomes are mothers' food skills and body weight.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 84
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Quebec, Canada, G1V 0A6
    • Laval University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Have Internet access, have at least one child aged two to twelve years, are mostly in charge of the planning and preparation of family meals, consume less than two servings a day of dairy products and/or less than seven servings a day of vegetables and fruits.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Take medications that could affect food intake, have eating disorders, are dieting, are currently pregnant or lactating.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Healthy eating blog (HEB); For a 6-month period, mothers randomised to the HEB group will receive a weekly blog post discussing various positive aspects of healthy eating and presenting recipes and strategies to increase dairy product intakes and vegetable and fruit intakes. The posts will be developed with an emphasis of food skills acquisition.	Behavioral: Healthy eating blog; For a 6-month period, mothers randomised to the HEB group will receive a weekly blog post discussing various positive aspects of healthy eating and presenting recipes and strategies to increase dairy product intakes and vegetable and fruit intakes. The posts will be developed with an emphasis of food skills acquisition.
No Intervention: Control; Mothers randomised to the control group will not have access to the healthy eating blog.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Daily intakes of dairy products, vegetables and fruits measured by a validated web-based food frequency questionnaire	Assessed at T=0 month, T=3 months and T=6 months.	6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Food skills measured by a web-based questionnaire	Food skills measured: planning of healthy meal, knowledge about food, nutrition and cooking, mechanical technics for food preparation, etc. Assessed at T=0 month, T=3 months and T=6 months.	6 months
Body weight	Assessed at T=0 month, T=3 months and T=6 months.	6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Laval University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Sophie Desroches, PhD, Laval University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Dumas AA, Lemieux S, Lapointe A, Provencher V, Robitaille J, Desroches S. Recruitment and retention of mothers of preschoolers and school-aged children in a social media-delivered healthy eating intervention: lessons learned from a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2020 Aug 10;21(1):706. doi: 10.1186/s13063-020-04628-0.
• Dumas AA, Lemieux S, Lapointe A, Provencher V, Robitaille J, Desroches S. Effects of an Evidence-Informed Healthy Eating Blog on Dietary Intakes and Food-Related Behaviors of Mothers of Preschool- and School-Aged Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2020 Jan;120(1):53-68. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2019.05.016. Epub 2019 Sep 10. Erratum In: J Acad Nutr Diet. 2020 Sep;120(9):1602-1603.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: October 1, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 1, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): April 1, 2018

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: March 8, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 15, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): May 17, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 31, 2018
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 29, 2018
• Last Verified: August 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 2014-257 A3/15-01-2016

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO