Using Contemporary Behavior Change Science to Design and Implement an Effective Nutritional Intervention Within Professional Rugby League

Abstract

Designing and implementing successful dietary intervention is integral to the role of sport nutrition professionals as they attempt to positively change the dietary behavior of athletes. High-performance sport is a time-pressured environment where immediate results can often supersede pursuit of the most effective evidence-based practice. However, efficacious dietary intervention necessitates comprehensive, systematic, and theoretical behavioral design and implementation, if the habitual dietary behaviors of athletes are to be positively changed. Therefore, this case study demonstrates how the Behaviour Change Wheel was used to design and implement an effective nutritional intervention within a professional rugby league. The eight-step intervention targeted athlete consumption of a high-quality dietary intake of 25.1 MJ each day to achieve an overall body mass increase of 5 kg across a 12-week intervention period. The capability, opportunity, motivation, and behavior model and affordability, practicability, effectiveness/cost-effectiveness, acceptability, safety, and equity criteria were used to identify population-specific intervention functions, policy categories, behavior change techniques, and modes of intervention delivery. The resulting intervention was successful, increasing the average daily energy intake of the athlete to 24.5 MJ, which corresponded in a 6.2 kg body mass gain. Despite consuming 0.6 MJ less per day than targeted, secondary outcome measures of diet quality, strength, body composition, and immune function all substantially improved, supporting sufficient energy intake and the overall efficacy of a behavioral approach. Ultimately, the Behaviour Change Wheel provides sport nutrition professionals with an effective and practical stepwise method to design and implement effective nutritional interventions for use within high-performance sport.

Implementation of a behavioural change intervention to enhance oral health behaviours in elite athletes: a feasibility study

“…19 20 High-performance sport is a time-pressured environment where immediate results can often supersede pursuit of the most effective evidencebased practice. 21 We hypothesised that 'loss aversion' would be a more potent motivator ('M' from COM-B) than oral health improvement. The intervention was designed to target this aspect as well as another target which became apparent during the initial athlete engagement phase, that is, appearance.…”

Barriers and Enablers to Clean Sport: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis Informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework and COM-B Model

“…Motivation can be reflective or automatic, and characterises the brain processes that drive behaviour. The COM-B and TDF have been applied to many contexts including those relevant to clean sport, such as nutritional programme adherence (Bentley et al, 2019;Costello et al, 2018), clinical medication adherence (Jackson et al, 2014;Crayton et al, 2018) and therapeutic use exemptions in sport (Allen et al, 2019). Importantly, the COM-B model forms the hub of the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) (Michie et al, 2011).…”

Pro-Environmental Energy Behavior in the Military: Assessing Behavior Change Factors at a Selected Military Unit

“…According to this model, all three conditions must be met in order to make an influence on individual's energy behavior: the individual's physical and social capability, individual's social and physical ability to explore new opportunities, and self-motivation as the crucial part of the behavior change [18]. This model was theoretically grounded and applied in a wide variety of contexts: nutrition [19], smoking [20], physical activity [21], as well as for energy use by households [22] and other end-users [23]. The COM-B model was applied to improve energy behavior in the military too [14,24].…”