Conducting eating behaviour change research in the field: common problems and recommendations

Background: Interventions in food environments to improve eating behaviours could make substantial progress towards tackling obesity and improving health in general. However, testing these interventions in field settings (e.g., cafeterias, supermarkets) is logistically complex, time consuming, and offers many challenges to implementation and evaluation. This study aimed to identify common problems faced by researchers who have conducted behaviour change research on eating behaviours in field settings. These insights can inform the planning and conduct of field studies as well as inform the development of guidelines to improve the quality of future field research.Methods: Qualitative content analysis of open text responses by 32 researchers with experience of conducting field studies targeting eating behaviours. An online survey was distributed that contained a mixture of closed and open questions to identify common problems encountered during research on changing eating behaviours in field environments, how researchers solved or managed these problems, and the impact they perceived the problems had on the validity of their results.Results: Content analysis yielded 23 subcategories of distinct problems which fell into three categories: recruitment, data collection/analysis, and intervention delivery. There were also three categories of solutions which mapped onto the three problem categories. There were 21 subcategories of solutions, with some problems having multiple solutions and some having none. 88% of researchers’ responses stated that these problems affected the validity of their own research: 51% to a small extent, 31% to a moderate extent, and 6% to a large extent.Conclusions: A large majority of researchers reported that practical problems occurred during field studies that they have conducted and that these problems may have affected the validity of their results. We provide a preliminary set of guidelines for predicting and managing problems that occur when conducting behaviour change research in such settings.