Table 2.

Overview of selected theory-based methods clustered by theoretical domains, parameters for use, and examples of practical applications to the blog^a,b,c.

Theoretical domains	Theory-based methods	Parameters for use	Examples of practical applications to the blog
Knowledge	Information about health consequences	Messages need to be relevant and not too discrepant from the beliefs of the individual; can be stimulated by surprise and repetition; will include arguments.	The use of the intervention blog itself allowed us to transfer relevant nutritional knowledge, eg, about the health benefits of consuming recommended daily servings of Vegetables and Fruits and Milk and Alternatives food groups.
	Feedback on behavior	Feedback needs to be individual, follow the behavior in time, and be specific.	The RD blogger provided positive feedback on participants’ behavior through comments function of the blog.
Beliefs about consequences (attitude)	Emotional consequences	Present messages as individual and undeniable and compare them with absolute and normative standards.	The RD blogger provided knowledge about the advantages of consuming Vegetables and Fruits and Milk and Alternatives food groups every day and shared real-life examples on how changing these behaviors improved the quality of her eating habits.
	Information about social and environmental consequences	May include awareness about serving as a role model for others.	The RD blogger provided knowledge about the advantages of efficient planning meals, such as reducing meal preparation time and food expenses, and improving the diet quality of their child.
Beliefs about capabilities (self-efficacy, perceived behavioral control)	Verbal persuasion to boost self-efficacy	Credible source.	Through an empathic and positive writing style, the RD blogger told study participants that they could all perform the weekly goals and ascertained that all could increase their daily intakes of Vegetables and Fruits and Milk and Alternatives food groups.
Goals (intention)	Goal-setting (behavior)	Commitment to the goal; goals that are difficult but available within the individual’s skill level.	At the end of each post, the RD blogger encouraged study participants to take up a challenge, such as involving children in meal preparation in the upcoming week.
	Review of behavior goal(s)	Raising awareness must be quickly followed by increase in problem-solving ability and self-efficacy.	At the beginning of every blog post, the RD blogger prompted the study participants to comment on their experience of the previous week’s challenge with an open-ended question.
Social influences (social support, social norms)	Modeling or demonstrating the behavior	Attention, remembrance, self-efficacy and skills, reinforcement of model, identification with model, coping model instead of mastery model.	The RD blogger provided real-life realistic examples of how she overcomes barriers to increase her daily servings of Vegetables and Fruits and Milk and Alternatives. Each post contained a step-by-step recipe featuring Vegetables and Fruits and Milk and Alternatives food groups. Recipes were described textually and with step-by-step pictures.
Skills	Graded tasks	The final behavior can be reduced to easier but increasingly difficult sub-behaviors.	As the intervention moved forward, the sequence of the blog provided an overview of more general aspects of healthy eating (eg, the Canadian Eat Well Plate [32]) to more complex skills (eg, reading food labels).

^aTheory-based methods were selected from the Basic Methods for Behavior Change from the IM taxonomy [33] and the behavior change techniques from the Behavior Change Technique Taxonomy v1 [34], grouped by the theoretical domains of the Theoretical Domains Framework [25], based on the structure proposed by Cane et al [35].

^bWe judged it appropriate to use behavior change techniques associated with the construct of skills, as the acquisition of real skills is complementary to improvement in self-efficacy for behavior change [34,37]. Given the important social aspect of blogs [38,39], modeling, a behavior change technique associated with the construct of social Influences, was also used.

^CParameters for use were drawn from the IM taxonomy [33].