The Cooperative Extension Service (Extension) is looked to nationwide as a leader in nutrition education. Reaching 3,000+ counties across the United States (U.S.) and local educators with social and cultural contexts, Extension is well-positioned to deliver tailored nutrition education to audiences across the country.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Extension, skilled in delivering in-person programming, was forced to adopt novel approaches for the dissemination of evidence-based information at the local level. At the University of Kentucky (UK), state-level Extension Specialists (subject matter experts) provided live, virtual programming through online platforms to support county-level Extension Agents as they adjusted to new programmatic delivery methods. Specifically, UK FCS established the virtual Big Blue Book Club (BBBC). This program allowed Extension Specialists to deliver book reviews, discuss content relevant to FCS, and host book authors virtually. Since 2020, BBBC has covered six books with topics ranging from substance use recovery to identity theft.

The first book selection offered during FY23 was Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey through His Son's Addiction by David Scheff.  This session, led by our content specialist for Substance Use Prevention and Recovery, gave readers a first-hand account of the highs and lows of families living with addicted members. Through reading and discussion, participants shared the experiences of the family represented by the book, but also through their own families.  Throughout the three sessions for this book selection, participants recounted poignant parallels between the book and their own lives, giving the facilitator the opportunity to guide and instruct.

When surveyed during previous BBBC, past participants shared a strong interest for a nutrition or health-focused book that addressed the growing concerns of nutrition misinformation and health fraud for consumers accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. UK FCS Extension staff saw this as a unique opportunity to address nutrition literacy, focusing on the consumer’s ability to understand, process, and implement nutrition information appropriately to address their health or the health of a loved one. As a result, BBBC selected the book, Is Butter a Carb? Unpicking Fact from Fiction in the World of Nutrition by Rosie Saunt and Helen West.

The BBBC was offered as a series of four, 60-minute Zoom Webinars in March 2023 to coincide with National Nutrition Month^®. A total of 598 individuals registered for the program, representing 88% (n=105) of counties across Kentucky.

Mentimeter was used as an audience response system during live programming and data was collected anonymously from participants in real time during all four sessions. The number of respondents was captured for each question and reported when appropriate. Participants were asked to indicate their change in understanding of specific nutrition topics after reading a specific chapter in the book. As a result of the book club, a substantial percentage of participants reported a “quite a bit” or “a great deal” change in understanding on the following topics: fats (n=64) = 69%, carbohydrates (n=59) = 66%, and micronutrients and supplements (n=47) = 72%. Participants were asked to rate their confidence related to nutrition on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) at the beginning of Session 1 and at the end of Session 4. At both time points, participants self-reported that nutrition was highly important. However, there were increases in confidence related to making food and nutrition choices from Session 1 (3.60) compared to Session 4 (4.27) and feeling confident in determining if nutrition information is fact or fiction from Session 1 (3.38) to Session 4 (4.32).

In the final session, one of the book authors from the United Kingdom joined UK Extension staff for a Q&A session. At this session, participants had the opportunity to share what was most helpful to them about the book. Fifty-two open-ended responses were collected. Some shared:

• Teaching me that a healthy diet and healthy weight is different for everyone.
• The theme that each person is different and their health needs are different!
• The importance of balance vs. trends; the importance of looking at sources of information about nutrition; diet doesn't need to be all or nothing.
• The suggestion to be more intentional about where and who I get food information from.
• It feels very relatable about the way I feel about food now.  I’m encouraging others to look into this book and way of thinking about food!

To our knowledge, this is the first program evaluation of a virtual book club intervention addressing nutrition in adults and reveals the potential effectiveness of a month-long virtual book club for improving consumers’ ability to understand, process, and implement reliable nutrition information accurately to support health.