Evaluating an online nutrition program for young adult university students: Eating Advice To Students (EATS)

Eating Advice To Students (EATS) is a brief or single use intervention. The goal of EATS is to facilitate improvement in overall diet quality, including targeting four specific eating behaviours: consumption of fruit, vegetables, discretionary foods and breakfast. The intervention involves password protected access to the EATS website (www.eatingadvicetostudents.com) on a single occasion. The website includes four components; 1) a brief screening quiz providing personalised feedback on eating behaviours and barriers to healthy eating, 2) provision of information, tips and strategies for each target behaviour, and two guided exercises to facilitate behaviour change; 3) goal-setting and 4) creating strategies. The intervention has been developed based on the PRECEDE-PROCEED planning model, and incorporates formative research, including an online survey of 4,581 university students, and a systematic review of brief nutrition interventions. The intervention components and content are mapped to behaviour change techniques, as identified to be effective in formative research.