Fruit and Vegetable Intake Promotion. "The UVa Community Eats Healthy" Study Protocol (University of Valladolid)

Social Media for Nutrition Education. Fruit and Vegetable Intake Promotion in a University Setting: "The UVa Community Eats Healthy" Study Protocol

The goal of this randomized controlled trial is to increase the consumption of fruit and vegetables of the University of Valladolid (UVa) community employing three different online methodologies: facebook (FB), virtual campus (VC) and, instagram (IG).

In order to use different methodologies, the sample was randomly divided in four groups, three took the nutrition educational program and the other one was a control group.

All four groups had access to the virtual campus of the UVa which uses the teaching platform Moodle Learning Management System (LMS). In this platform, a course entitled "The UVa community eats healthy" was created with four sections. Each of the sections corresponded to one of the four groups, the names of the sections were: I-campus (VC group), C-campus (control group), F-campus (FB group), and G-campus (IG group).

To make the intervention more effective, this program was theory-based designed, based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

In order to assess the effectivity of social media use for nutrition education compared to more traditional interventions, the program was adapted to three platforms: virtual campus, private account of IG and private group of FB. The topics of the intervention groups were the same but with adapted activities.

Inclusion Criteria:

• being part of the UVa community at the time of recruitment
• having IG and/or FB account
• having made the self-registration to the Moodle virtual campus of each group during the enrolment period

Exclusion Criteria:

• not meeting inclusion criteria