STAGES OF CHANGE IN ADOPTING HEALTHY DIETS - FAT, FIBER, AND CORRELATES OF NUTRIENT INTAKE

The stages of change construct, which addresses the readiness to chang e, has only recently been applied to dietary behavior, such as fat con sumption. This article describes the application of the stages of chan ge construct to dietary fat and fiber consumption and examines the ass ociation of dietary stages to eating practices and related demographic and psychosocial factors in a large, geographically diverse populatio n of workers. We present results from the baseline survey of 17,121 em ployees in the Working Well Trial. We assessed stage from an algorithm based on seven items and measured dietary intake with an 88-item food frequency questionnaire. Findings indicated that a greater proportion of the population has actively tried to reduce fat intake than to con sume more fiber. Stage of change was associated with fat, fiber, and f ruit and vegetable intake in a stepwise manner, as predicted. In multi variate analyses that controlled for demographic characteristics, stag e of change predicted between 8 and 13% of the variance in dietary int ake, and more than demographic variables. These findings have implicat ions for the design of nutrition interventions and for the evaluation of intermediate outcomes.