A social media nutrition promotion program to improve calcium intakes in young adults

The 3 arm RCT included two intervention groups (Facebook and Facebook plus text) and one control group. For the Facebook group, educational (educating on calcium-containing food sources and recommended serves) and motivational posts (reminded participants about setting goals and tracking progress for habit formation, tips for including more calcium) together with cooking videos (recipe videos that provided instructions on how to incorporate calcium in main meals and snacks) were delivered every second day for six weeks. An infographic was used to inform participants of the recommendations and set as the cover photo. The design of these posts applied the COM-B model of behaviour change. For the Facebook plus text group, on the alternate days when Facebook contact was not delivered, text messages that asked them to set goals, prompted them to engage with the Facebook content and progress their goals. Social support was provided via 2-way text messaging. The duration was six weeks and the intervention was delivered remotely by a dietitian to the Australian community of young adults. The daily usage was at the participant’s discretion. The location was to the persons Facebook account or mobile phone (for those receiving text messages). Fidelity was assessed by number of replies to text messages and views of Facebook posts