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Impact and evaluation of an online culinary nutrition course for health, education and industry professionals to promote vegetable knowledge and consumption.

BACKGROUND
Poor diet including inadequate vegetable intake is a leading risk factor for non-communicable disease. Culinary and nutrition education provided to trainee and practising health and education professionals is an emerging strategy to promote improved dietary intake, including vegetable consumption. We evaluated the impact and feasibility of an online culinary medicine and nutrition (CM/CN) short course for health, education and vegetable industry professionals. The course aimed to improve participants' skills, and confidence to prepare vegetables, knowledge of evidence-based nutrition information, and recommendations for improving vegetable consumption and diet quality.


METHODS
A pre-post study consisting of two separate groups participating in two course rounds, recruited practising professionals (n = 30) working in health; community, adult and/or culinary education; and the vegetable industry. Evaluation assessed diet quality, vegetable consumption barriers, cooking and food skills confidence, nutrition knowledge and process measures.


RESULTS
Seventeen participants (68%) completed the program. Pre to post intervention statistically significant increases in vegetables (M1.3, SD2.2), fruit (M1.6, SD3.1), and breads and cereal (M1.1, SD1.7) intakes were observed. Statistically significant increases and large effect sizes for mean food skill confidence scores (M8.9, SD 15.4, Cohen's d 0.56) and nutrition knowledge scores (M6.2, SD 15.4, Cohen's d 0.83) were also observed pre to post intervention.


CONCLUSION
The short online course was feasible and improved diet quality, food skill confidence and nutrition knowledge. Online CM/CN education for practising professionals represents a promising area of research. Future research involving a larger study sample and more rigorous study design such as RCT is warranted. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.