Effects of a College Course About Food and Society on Students' Eating Behaviors
Open accessAbstract
Background Health education programs for promoting a healthful diet have shown limited success in clinical trials.Purpose This paper aims to examine whether an innovative educational course focused on societal-level issues related to food and food production (Food and Society) would promote healthful eating among college students.Methods A quasi-experimental non-RCT was conducted to compare changes in eating behaviors among students taking the Food and Society course (n=28) versus students taking health-related human biology courses about obesity, health psychology, and community health assessment (n=72). All participants were undergraduates. A Food Frequency Questionnaire was administered at the beginning and end of the four courses taught from January through March 2009. Students in the Food and Society course read selected portions of popular books and essays (e.g., Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma) and watched documentaries (e.g., Aaron Woolf's King Corn) highlighting environmental, ethical, social justice, cultural, political, and agricultural issues related to food and food production, and discussed these major themes during class sessions. In addition, students were required to (1) write an Op-Ed article and (2) create a brief YouTube video focused on themes discussed in the course.Results The students who took the Food and Society course reported significantly improving their healthful eating (F[2, 97]=5.72, p=0.02), with greatest improvements in increased vegetable (F[2, 97]=10.96, p=0.001) and decreased high-fat dairy (F[2, 97]=5.39, p=0.02) intakes relative to the comparison group.Conclusions The results suggest that it may be possible to change dietary behaviors in college students by focusing on social, ethical, cultural, and environmental issues related to food and food production.
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Many patients are interested in vegan dietary patterns for animal welfare reasons or environmental concerns alongside documented health benefits, which may be a useful impetus to promote behavioral change.
“Many patients are interested in vegan dietary patterns for animal welfare reasons or because of environmental concerns alongside documented health benefits, which may be a useful impetus to promote behavioral change.25,77,78”
From Popular dietary patterns: alignment with American Heart Association 2021 dietary guidance: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. (2023) · cites this paper as [77]
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- Authors
- Hekler, E. B., Gardner, C. D., & Robinson, T. N.
- Affiliations
- Stanford Medicine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hekler, Eric B.
- Venue
- American Journal of Preventive Medicine
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-05
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 543-547
- ISSN
- 0749-3797 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7153746
- OpenAlex
- W2101923150
- Cited by
- 95
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 6.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- American Journal of Preventive Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (T32HL007034)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health and Lifestyle Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Nutrition, Health, and Society Studies
- Keywords
- food and society, dietary habits, university students, health education, food production, dietary intake, vegetable consumption, food ethics, social justice, healthy eating
- MeSH terms
- Culture, Curriculum, Feeding Behavior, Female, Food, Health Education, Health Promotion, Humans, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Students, United States, Universities, Program Evaluation, Young Adult
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