Assessing the Effectiveness of a Health-Belief Model-Based Intervention on the Nutrition Knowledge, Health Beliefs, and Behaviors of Adult Participants of the YMCA

Abstract

Background: Nutrition is foundational for athletes to achieve optimal athletic performance and to promote proper recovery while reducing the risk of injury. Many lack nutrition-related knowledge, health beliefs, and behaviors pertaining to general and sports nutrition to do so.

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of a health belief model-based intervention for improving nutrition-related knowledge, health beliefs, and behaviors.

Methods: A quasi-experimental design study and pre/post-intervention assessments were used to measure the effectiveness of an online health belief model-based intervention program in improving nutrition-related knowledge, health beliefs, and behaviors of adult participants (n = 4) of the YMCA. Mann-Whitney U tests were used to assess for changes in significance in nutrition related knowledge, health beliefs, and behaviors.

Results: The intervention did not produce improvements in nutrition-related knowledge, health beliefs, and behaviors of statistical significance related to general and sports nutrition.

Conclusions: The discrepancies in the findings of the current study and prior studies relating to the effectiveness of the intervention’s theoretical framework in producing improvements in general and sports nutrition related knowledge, health beliefs, and behaviors may suggest that the current studies’ unequal, small sample size resulted in the inability to determine statistical significance.