The major objective of this proposed continuation project is to conduct a final field trial of the Nutrition for a Lifetime System (NLS), a stand-alone, public access, multimedia system housed in a kiosk in supermarkets. The NLS has been tested and refined in efficacy studies involving a wide range of consumers with studies supported by the National Cancer Institute. The NLS uses state-of-the-art software and hardware and, from the user's perspective, is now in its simplest form. The NLS provides brief weekly programs in a series focusing on decreasing fat and increasing produce and fiber in the diet consistent with NCI's nutritional guidelines, prompts such purchases through its programs, and provides individualized coupons (person, store, and time- limited) for these purchases. It also has programs to help maintain new purchase patterns. The proposed experimental field trial will be conducted in five supermarkets representative of supermarkets within a large store chain, involve 500 participants with particular attention to the inclusion of women and minorities, monitor all supermarket purchases of study participants using a scanning technology, and thus be able to ascertain how the NLS affected study participants' purchases relative to control participants. In addition, how sociodemographic, minority group status, and store characteristics affected outcomes will be assessed. Overall, this field trial proposes to show the ability of the NLS to influence under real-world conditions supermarket shoppers to alter their food purchases in ways consistent with NCI's nutrition guidelines and to address through the project's micro-data base issues (e.g., coupon redemption patterns) critical to the wide-scale use of the NLS in supermarkets and the commercialization potential of the NLS for adoption by third-party firms.
| Anderson, E S; Winett, R A; Wojcik, J R et al. (2001) A computerized social cognitive intervention for nutrition behavior: direct and mediated effects on fat, fiber, fruits, and vegetables, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations among food shoppers. Ann Behav Med 23:88-100 |
| Anderson, E S; Winett, R A; Wojcik, J R (2000) Social-cognitive determinants of nutrition behavior among supermarket food shoppers: a structural equation analysis. Health Psychol 19:479-86 |
| Winett, R A; Wagner, J L; Moore, J F et al. (1991) An experimental evaluation of a prototype public access nutrition information system for supermarkets. Health Psychol 10:75-8 |
