The Effect of Nutrition Education and the Diet Rice Bowl on Weight Control

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effectiveness of nutrition education and program using the diet rice bowl during a four-week diet program. Thirty-eight female college students were randomly assigned to a nutrition education (NE) group or a nutrition education and diet rice bowl (ND) group. The mean energy intake of the NE and ND group during the program was 1,130.8 kcal and 1,287.4 kcal, respectively. The total energy intake of both groups were significantly decreased during the program. In addition, the change of body weight and fat in both groups significantly decreased during the program. The NE group lost 2.8 kg of body weight and 1.4% of body fat, while the ND group lost 2.5 kg of body weight and 1.2% of body fat. The changes in total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol in both groups also significantly decreased during the program. However, there were no significant differences in the changes of body weight, body fat mass, the total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol between the two groups. This study could not identify a weight reduction effect of the diet rice bowl, however, this may be due to subjects' infrequent use of the diet rice bowl by their frequent meal skipping and eating-out in our study. Therefore, further studies regarding the compliance to the diet rice bowl should be conducted to examine its effectiveness on weight control.