Promoting Healthy Eating: Computer-Tailored Interventions

There is a great need for developing effective interventions that contribute to promoting healthy dietary habits. Personally tailored nutrition feedback is proven to be far more effective than are general, non-tailored advices. Only recently has the oppor tunity to give such personally tailored advice through an interactive computer program become available. The aim of this project is to investigate the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of computer-tailored interventions distributed through th e Internet in three sub-studies: 1) to a sample of adults, 2) to school children, and 3) as part of a larger, ongoing school-based intervention programme, the Pro Children Project, conducted with 6th grade pupils and their parents in Buskerud County. Bec ause the majority of the Norwegian population today has access to computers at work, home, school, libraries and/or Internet cafés, interactive computer supported personalized advice represent an innovative strategy with the potential to reach large group s of people. Research on the effect of such advice is at the very beginning. Further studies are needed to investigate the effects of web-based tailored fruit and vegetable feedback among groups with various education levels, different dietary habits and between different age groups. Such studies have not been conducted among children, or among adults in Scandinavia. No feasibility studies have been published, nor have studies on how different groups experience this kind of interventions. If interactive computer-supported personalized advice is shown to be effective, this method can be adapted to other dietary habits, physical activity and smoking cessation. As soon as the program is developed, it can be distributed and made available for large groups t hough the Internet at low cost. This intervention strategy therefore has the potential of contributing significantly to decreasing the incidence of chronic diseases in the populatiation.