(P20-059-24) Effect of Introductory Nutrition Education at the Undergraduate Level on Nutrition Knowledge and Dietary Habits in East Texas Students

Objectives: Lack of nutritional knowledge in college students can lead to unhealthy eating behaviors such as overeating, eating energy dense foods, and irrational dieting.

The objective of this study was to explore the changes in nutritional knowledge and diet quality in East Texas college students following an introductory nutrition education course.

Methods: University of Texas at Tyler undergraduate students enrolled in one of the two nutrition courses - Introduction to Nutrition and Nutrition for Allied Health were eligible to participate in the study. Participants completed a general nutrition knowledge questionnaire (GNKQ) and 2 non-consecutive 24-hour dietary recalls using the Automated Self-Administered 24-hour (ASA24) Dietary Assessment Tool both at the beginning and end of the semester. GNKQ had 87 questions assessing knowledge on dietary recommendations (section 1), food groups (section 2), healthy food choices (section 3), and diet, disease and weight management (section 4). Healthy eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015) scores were calculated to estimate diet quality. Paired samples t-tests were used to evaluate mean differences in GNKQ and HEI-2015 scores from pre to post. Data are reported as mean ± SD.

Results: Students who provided complete responses to the GNKQ and reliable dietary recalls (n = 103) were included for analysis. At baseline GNKQ and HEI-2015 scores were 60.4 ± 11.2% and 47 ± 11.8, respectively. At follow-up, GNKQ scores increased by 10.5 percentage points(pp) to 70.9 ± 8.6% (p < 0.001) while HEI-2015 remained unchanged (48.7 ± 12.9; p = 0.171). Scores for all sections increased significantly (p < 0.001). The largest change was observed for section 4 (14.1 ± 14.4pp) followed by section 2 (10.1 ± 11.9pp), section 1 (9.1 ± 15pp), and section 3 (7.7 ± 16.7pp). The following HEI-2015 component scores increased (mean change ± SD): greens and beans (0.51 ± 2.3; p = 0.028), total protein (0.21 ± 1.1; p = 0.049) and added sugar (1.04 ± 3.2; p = 0.002). The remaining component scores did not change significantly over the semester.

Conclusions: An introductory nutrition education course at the undergraduate level significantly improved overall nutrition knowledge in students. Although overall diet quality did not change significantly, there was evidence of modest improvements in healthy food choices.

Funding Sources: Kinesiology, UT Tyler