(PS1-81) Changes in Social Support and Self-regulation with Household Involvement in a Dietary Intervention

Introduction: U.S. adults find it challenging to follow healthy dietary recommendations and may opt to engage in interventions that enhance nutritional knowledge and behavioral skills for dietary change. The household social environment has been theorized to impact one’s eating behaviors by modulating key psychosocial predictors of dietary intake, including social norms for healthy eating in the home and an individual’s dietary self-regulation. Researchers have begun to investigate how to harness the household environment in dietary interventions by inviting household members to engage in select intervention contacts with the enrolled participant (i.e., index participant). Household member involvement in interventions has the potential to enhance buy-in and motivation for household dietary change. However, little is known about how psychosocial predictors of eating behaviors, including social support and self-regulation for healthy eating, change when including household members in dietary interventions.  

Methods: The present study investigated changes in perceived household social support and self-regulation for healthy eating from baseline to post-treatment (20 weeks) among adult index participants (N = 62) enrolled in a behavioral nutrition intervention. Fifty percent of index participants were randomized to have an adult household member join select intervention contacts (i.e., group sessions and calls). All participants completed the Social Support for Diet questionnaire to measure perceived household social encouragement and discouragement of healthy eating and the Treatment Self-Regulation Questionnaire to measure autonomous and external motivation for healthy eating at baseline and post-treatment.  

Results: Repeated measures ANCOVAs revealed a significant household member involvement x time interaction for social encouragement of healthy eating (p=.02) and autonomous motivation for healthy eating (p = .03). Autonomous motivation for healthy eating significantly decreased from baseline to post-treatment among index participants without household involvement in the intervention (p=.004), but not among those with household involvement (p=.90). Household social encouragement of healthy eating significantly increased among index participants with household involvement in the intervention (p=.02), but not among those without household involvement (p=.31). No such significant interaction effects were observed for household social discouragement of healthy eating or external motivation for healthy eating (ps>.08).   

Conclusion: Household member involvement in a dietary intervention may enhance household social support for healthy eating and help index participants maintain high levels of autonomous motivation for healthy eating during the intervention. Future research should examine which components of household involvement contribute to psychosocial changes and investigate whether these changes predict dietary behaviors.