Development of an elective course on dietary supplements for undergraduate college students

Abstract

Due to little dietary supplement regulation and misinformation online, there is a need to educate consumers on them, which could be addressed using a higher education course to provide students resources to evaluate supplement information. The objective of this paper was to describe the design of a 3-credit dietary supplement elective course (HNF 102- Dietary Supplements: Evidence vs Hype) for undergraduate students. Furthermore, to analyze student perspectives and skills developed resulting from course completion. HNF 102 is a 5-unit asynchronous online course which consists of the following units: Unit (1) provides an overview of nutrition and dietary supplements; Unit (2) describes dietary supplement regulation; Unit (3) provides credible sources of dietary supplement information and tools to evaluate dietary supplement information; Unit (4) describes research on dietary supplements claimed to improve general health; Unit (5) describes research on dietary supplements purported to improve performance. A process evaluation inquiring about student opinions following course completion was offered as an extra credit opportunity. Overall, students indicated course lecture materials and assignments improved their understanding of dietary supplements and their ability to evaluate dietary supplement information. Dietary supplement undergraduate courses can be an effective method to improve consumer dietary supplement health literacy.

IMPACT STATEMENT

Due to the large amount of dietary supplement misinformation online, there is a need to educate consumers on them. This manuscript describes how an elective dietary supplement course was designed for undergraduate students to provide students with tools for evaluating dietary supplement information and where to find credible sources of dietary supplements. Upon completion of the course students reported that course lecture materials and assignments improved their understanding of dietary supplements and their ability to evaluate dietary supplement information. College elective courses could be a method to improve dietary supplement knowledge among college students.

Keywords:

• Dietary supplements
• higher education
• health literacy
• andragogy
• elective course

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• Joe Thomas, Institute of Health and Management, Australia

SUBJECTS:

• Nutrition
• Food Additives & Ingredients
• Food Laws & Regulations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tyler B. Becker

Tyler B. Becker PhD, CSCS, Michigan State University, sports nutrition, rural public health, exercise physiology.

Jenifer I. Fenton

Jenifer I. Fenton MPH, PhD, Michigan State University, diet modulating inflammation and diseases, feed consumption and fatty acid profile, colon cancer.

Eric A. Gurzell

Eric A. Gurzell PhD, high education andragogy.