title: Using mass media to promote healthy eating: A community-based demonstration project.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Many question whether mass media, in the absence of other programming, can produce significant and sustained behavior change.
  
  
  METHODS
  The 1% Or Less campaign in Wheeling, West Virginia (population 35,000), used paid advertising and public relations to encourage members of one community to switch from whole or 2% milk (high-fat milk) to 1% or fat-free milk (low-fat milk). The study used a quasi-experimental research design with one intervention city and one comparison city. The effectiveness of the campaign was evaluated by collecting milk sales data from supermarkets and conducting pre- and post-intervention telephone surveys in intervention and comparison cities.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the intervention city, low-fat milk sales increased from 29% of overall milk sales before the campaign to 46% of sales in the month following the campaign. The increase was maintained at the 6-month follow up. According to the telephone surveys, 34.1% of high-fat-milk drinkers reported switching to low-fat milk in the intervention community compared with 3.6% in the comparison community (z = 13.1, P < 0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A media-only approach was sufficient to encourage a significant proportion of the people in one community to alter the dietary habit targeted by the intervention.
authors.affiliation: Community Health Promotion, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506-6116, USA.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Reger
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Wootan
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Booth-Butterfield
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D004041:Dietary Fats; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D008875:Middle Aged; D008892:Milk; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014903:West Virginia
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats