Effects of a nutrition education program promoting self-monitoring of vegetable intake on amounts of vegetable consumption by workers

Abstract

Subject: A nutrition education program combining environmental support to distribute vegetable juice, installation of a skin carotenoid measuring device, motivation for vegetable intake through e-learning, and applications to facilitate self-monitoring was implemented in working people to evaluate its impact on vegetable intake.

Methods: A randomized parallel-group study was conducted on 285 healthy working adults (mean age: 44 years). The participants were divided into three groups with equal age and sex distributions. The control group was provided with environmental support, including vegetable juice and a skin carotenoid-measuring device. Intervention group I received e-learning, in addition to the environmental support and a skin carotenoid measuring device. Intervention group II used an app that facilitated self-monitoring of vegetable intake. The change in vegetable intake before and after the intervention, changes in the behavioral change stage, and frequency of self-monitoring were compared between the groups.

Results: Groups I and II, which included e-learning, made more progress in the transtheoretical model stage than did the control group, and environmental support was also utilized. Self-monitoring was significantly more frequent in the group II than in other groups. The mean increase in vegetable intake was the highest in group II, and was significantly higher than that in the control group.

Conclusion: Providing an e-learning program to motivate vegetable intake and an application to encourage self-monitoring increased the consumption of vegetable beverages provided as environmental support for vegetable intake as well as the frequency of self-monitoring, leading to an increase in vegetable intake among the workers.