Towards NACNE: improving eating habits in a Scottish health board

A low-cost locally based nutrition education programme was designed around the employment of a part-time dietitian with the aim of improving the nutritional intakes of Grampian Health Board staff. Its effectiveness was evaluated by assessment of habitual dietary intakes of staff, using a previously validated questionnaire administered to random samples before and after the intervention programme. The results indicated significant changes towards lower fat and higher carbohydrate intakes (both P less than 0.05) and improvements appeared to be distributed throughout the sexes, and age and socioeconomic groups. Mean fat intakes of staff fell by 2.7 per cent of total energy (P less than 0.01). Current long-term nutritional goals were achieved by 6 per cent of staff before the intervention programme and by 13 per cent afterwards (P less than 0.05). The example set in the staff dining rooms by the introduction of modified recipes and low-fat/high-carbohydrate replacements for some of the less healthy traditional dishes was well received and led to no increase in catering costs.