Sustainable Office Intervention, Impact of a Sustainable Lifestyle on Diet, Physical Activity and Carbon Footprint (SOFIA)

Mälardalen University

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Healthy Lifestyle; Healthy Diet

Treatments: Behavioral: Healthy lifestyle; Behavioral: Sustainable lifestyle

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06698094

1-2020/0244

Details and patient eligibility

About

The main goal of the study, Sustainable Office Intervention (SOFIA), is to promote and ease the adoption of a sustainable lifestyle within an office environment, with the dual goals of enhancing public health and mitigating the adverse effects of climate change. Specifically, the study aims to assess the effectiveness of promoting sustainable lifestyle choices in the office workplace compared to promoting a conventional healthy lifestyle in regards to diet and physical activity.

Full description

The participants will be recruited at companies in the Swedish office sector, and after recruitment and baseline assessment, the participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups Healthy Lifestyle (HL) or Sustainable Lifestyle (SL).

All participants will complete web-based questionnaires including background information about weight, height, diet, physical activity, smoking, education and other relevant background variables at the beginning of the study as well as at the end of the study. Participants will attend separate group-based workshops 6 times during the 8-week intervention period held by trained personnel. During these workshops, participants will be guided by education, food provision, and assistance to identify facilitators and barriers to a healthy or sustainable lifestyle. In addition, adherence to a healthy or sustainable lifestyle will be reinforced using a behavioral support package provided through a digital platform during the intervention period.

We will compare baseline, midpoint, and final (i.e. week 0, 4 and 8) nutrient intake, CO2e, and the dietary sustainability score for the two diets with an ANOVA model. We assume a dropout rate of 10-15% after baseline assessment (based on our previous pilot study from the fall of 2017) Climate Friendly and Ecological Food on Microbiota (CLEAR). Therefore, we will recruit 47 people to each group to have at least 40 at the end of the study. With 40 participants in each group, this analysis has >90% power to detect a 50% reduction in CO2e for the intervention group. To gain further insight into the development of intake of nutrients, CO2e, and the dietary sustainability score during the follow-up, we will use linear mixed models, with individual-specific baseline trajectories. Moreover, we will perform substitution analyses, i.e. scenarios where a number of meals high in CO2e are substituted for meals low in CO2e. Statistical analyses will be done in R-statistics.

Enrollment: 90 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Preform office work ≤20 hours/week

Exclusion criteria

• Allergies excluding large food groups
• Visual or speech disability
• Not owning a smartphone.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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90 participants in 2 patient groups

Healthy lifestyle group (HL)

Active Comparator group

Description:

The control group will receive advice about a conventional healthy diet according to the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR 2014) and international physical activity recommendations from WHO. The participants will get information about the recommended distribution of energy from macronutrients i.e. energy coming from fat, protein, and carbohydrates, as well as general recommendations about the "plate model", i.e. the combination of food on the plate to adhere to the recommended nutrient intake. Additionally, they will receive instructions to increase physical activity to reach 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week or the equivalent vigorous activity.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Healthy lifestyle

Sustainable lifestyle group (SL)

Experimental group

Description:

The sustainable lifestyle group will receive instructions to increase the consumption of healthy organic plant-based foods that is carbon or environmentally friendly (i.e. fruits, vegetables, legumes, multigrain cereals, or labeled foods) and decrease consumption of beef and dairy products. We expect that the reduction of diet-related CO2e will be 50% as compared to the baseline, while the intake of nutrients such as fiber, vitamin C, and folate will increase. Additionally, they will receive instructions to increase active and emission-free transportation, i.e. walking and biking to and from work and meetings.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Sustainable lifestyle