Understanding Food Literacy Intervention Effectiveness: Postsecondary Students’ Perspectives on How a mHealth Food Literacy Intervention Impacted Their Dietary Behaviors

Objective

To explore postsecondary students’ perspectives of the impacts of a mobile health (mHealth) food literacy intervention on dietary behaviors and why the intervention was or was not effective at influencing their dietary behavior.

Design

Qualitative study using semistructured focus groups.

Setting

Ontario, Canada.

Participants

Ten focus groups were conducted with postsecondary students (n = 30) aged 17–25 years from 2 universities.

Phenomenon of Interest

The impacts of a mHealth food literacy intervention on participants’ dietary behaviors and why the intervention was or was not effective.

Analysis

Focus group data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis.

Results

Themes regarding dietary impacts included increased dietary consciousness, decrease in perceived unhealthy foods, increase in perceived healthy foods, making healthier dietary choices, and the Hawthorne effect. Intervention effectiveness themes encompassed barriers and facilitators to engagement and participants’ ability to implement the intervention into their dietary behaviors. Facilitators included intervention suitability and application functionality; barriers included technology concerns, lacking time, food accessibility, food affordability, and intervention suitability.

Conclusion and Implications

This study provides insights into the impact, facilitators, and barriers of a mHealth food literacy intervention on postsecondary students’ dietary behaviors. Consideration of these facilitators and barriers may improve the effectiveness of future interventions.