OBJECTIVES: (1) To describe promotional activities, particularly student-led, targeting lower-fat à la carte foods that were conducted in secondary schools; and (2) to describe the relationships between the number and duration of total promotional activities for lower-fat à la carte foods and cafeteria sales of such foods over two years. ...

Formulation and implementation of a national food and nutrition policy is important for ensuring good health and quality of life. This study examined the formulation and implementation of food and nutrition policies in the USA, Australia, and Norway. Library searches, MEDLINE and POPLINE searches, and personal communications were used for ...

Good nutrition depends on access to a healthful food supply. Although a great deal of attention has been paid to food intake as a determinant of nutrition and overall health, little attention has been paid to the food supply system, health risks embedded in it, and its effect on people's ...

During the past decade, prevalence of food allergies among children increased. Caring for children with life-threatening food allergies has become a major challenge for school personnel. Prior to 2002, Massachusetts did not provide clear guidelines to assist schools in providing a safe environment for these children and preparing for an ...

It was supposed to be an amicable "merger of equals," an example of European togetherness, a synergistic deal that would create the world's second-largest consumer foods company out of two former competitors. But the marriage of entrepreneurial powerhouse Royal Biscuit and the conservative, family-owned Edeling GmbH is beginning to look ...

The Trial for Activity in Adolescent Girls (TAAG) is a multi-center group-randomized trial to reduce the usual decline in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) among middle-school girls. In group-randomized trials, the group-level intraclass correlation (ICC) has a strong inverse relationship to power and a good estimate of ICC is ...

This article reports on the outcomes of the Teens Eating for Energy and Nutrition at School (TEENS) study, a 2-year intervention study conducted in 16 middle schools with a goal of increasing students' intakes of fruits, vegetables, and lower fat foods. Despite positive interim results for students randomized to intervention ...

OBJECTIVES: We assessed the impact of access to school snack bars on middle school students' fruit, vegetable, milk, and sweetened beverage consumption. METHODS: Five hundred ninety-four fourth- and fifth-grade students completed lunch food records 4 times during a 2-year period. RESULTS: The fourth-grade cohort consumed fewer fruits, regular (not fried) ...

Childhood obesity is an increasing health problem in New Zealand and many other countries. Information is needed to guide interventions that reduce the 'obesogenic' (obesity-promoting) elements of school environments. The aim of this study was to identify and measure the obesogenic elements of the school environment and the canteen sales ...

This study examined a nutrition education program consisting of two content sessions: food-label reading, and food pyramid guide. In each session two groups of nutrition interns utilized four teaching methods: role-play/video presentation/display, grocery store tour, overhead transparency and lecture, and power point lecture, among a group of (N = 29) ...

In recent years, the food and beverage industry in the US has viewed children and adolescents as a major market force. As a result, children and adolescents are now the target of intense and specialized food marketing and advertising efforts. Food marketers are interested in youth as consumers because of ...

In a number of extensive coastal areas in northwest Europe, large numbers of long-lived migrant birds eat shellfish that are also commercially harvested. Competition between birds and people for this resource often leads to conflicts between commercial and conservation interests. One policy to prevent shellfishing from harming birds is to ...

This paper explores the way in which children with life-threatening food allergies, their parents and their public caregivers have increasingly been made subject to both projects of moral regulation and mechanism of governance aimed at the management of risk. We argue that new regulatory measures in Canada designed to significantly ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine differences in the contribution of foods and beverages to energy consumed in and out of school, and to compare consumption patterns between school canteen users and noncanteen users. DESIGN: Cross-sectional National Nutrition Survey, 1995. SETTING: Australia. SUBJECTS ON SCHOOL DAYS: A total of 1656 children aged 5-15 ...

OBJECTIVE: To describe the characteristics of employees having lunch at staff canteens and to examine the association between workplace lunch and recommended food habits. DESIGN: A mailed questionnaire including data on lunch pattern, food habits, sociodemographic background, work-related factors and body weight. Logistic regression models including food habits as dependent ...

Today, many initiatives to promote healthy eating and physical activity focus on changing policy and the environment to improve the health, not only of motivated or high-risk individuals but also the entire population. The escalating rates of overweight/obesity and incidence of diet-related diseases/health conditions will require many interventions to influence ...

Legislative bodies in the United States have often passed laws to regulate food in its production, content, and sale. Additionally, legislatures have created economic policies that directly affect the food supply and determine both the type and quantity of food available. Legislatively-enacted federal programs, such as the National School Lunch ...

The marked increase in the prevalence of obesity appears to be attributable to environmental conditions that implicitly discourage physical activity while explicitly encouraging the consumption of greater quantities of energy-dense, low-nutrient foods. In the United States food environment, consumers are bombarded with advertising for unhealthy food, and receive inadequate nutritional ...

Poor nutrition, foodborne disease and lack of secure access to good food make an important contribution to the burden of disease and death in the WHO European Region. Better diets, food safety and food security will not only reduce or prevent suffering to individuals and societies but also help cut ...

BACKGROUND: Pathways, a randomized trial, evaluated the effectiveness of a school-based multicomponent intervention to reduce fatness in American-Indian schoolchildren. The goal of the Pathways food service intervention component was to reduce the fat in school lunches to no more than 30% of energy from fat while maintaining recommended levels of ...

BACKGROUND: Pathways was a multisite, multicomponent obesity prevention intervention for American-Indian schoolchildren. The goal of the school breakfast and lunch component was to reduce fat content of school meals to 30% or fewer calories from fat without compromising dietary quality. METHODS: An intensive 3-year intervention was implemented with school food ...

BACKGROUND: This paper reviews the available literature on the school food environment with a focus on identifying effective strategies to promote vegetable and fruit (VF) consumption among youth in school settings. METHODS: Studies were identified through a search of electronic databases as well as references cited within published articles. Seven ...

The paper describes dietary changes and related nutrition policies and interventions in Finland since the 1960s. Dietary changes are interpreted from the lifestyle perspective, in which food consumption patterns are assumed to be formed by the interplay of individual choices and structural chances, such as socioeconomic and cultural conditions. Finland ...

The United States accounts for more than 51% of the dollar 430.3 billion expended on pharmaceutical products worldwide each year. Yet, in comparison to other advanced industrial societies, the United States has relatively worse health outcomes across many measures. This disparity challenges the perceived efficacy and cost effectiveness of pharmaceutical ...

This descriptive study was carried out to determine food safety practices among food Vendors in secondary schools in Ilorin. Pre-tested questionnaire and observational checklist were administered to 185 respondents recruited using inclusion and exclusion criteria. One hundred and eighty-two (98.4%) of the subjects were females and only 6(3%) were teenagers. ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of using citizen politics as a framework for empowering citizens to build a community food security agenda. DESIGN: A critical perspective, case study design, and multiple qualitative methods were used. Participants/Setting: Forty-four participants were purposefully recruited to participate in a community-based planning process called a ...

OBJECTIVES: This study described the food environment in 20 Minnesota secondary schools. METHODS: Data were collected on school food policies and the availability and nutritional content of foods in school à la carte (ALC) areas and vending machines (VMs). RESULTS: Approximately 36% and 35% of foods in ALC areas and ...

Overweight and poor nutrition of children in the United States are becoming issues of increasing concern for public health. Dietary patterns of U.S. children indicate they are consuming too few fruits and vegetables and too many foods high in fat and sugar. Contributing to this pattern of food consumption is ...

Food consumption patterns are influenced by a number of factors, including social and cultural factors. It is difficult to effect dietary change, and one possible barrier to dietary change is optimistic bias. Research indicates that individuals tend to believe that they are less likely to experience negative events, and more ...

Food and nutrition policy activities directed toward improvement of the nutritional status of the people of Bangladesh began in the 1980s. The government formulated a national food and nutrition policy and approved it in 1997. Qualitative methods, including observational techniques, in-depth interviews of the key informants, and focus group discussions, ...

Evaluation of the infection potential in the home suggests that improved hygiene practice could significantly reduce the impact of infectious diseases. Fundamental to developing infection prevention policy for the home is the need to recognise that people live in an environment where all human activities occur, including food and water ...

Facilities undergoing decommissioning are required to conduct radiological surveys to initially characterize contaminants, guide remediation activities, and demonstrate that cleanup criteria have been met, based on screening or site-specific derived concentration guideline levels. This paper presents a number of technical considerations, not all inclusive, associated with the use of in ...

Macroeconomic food policies have the potential to reduce malnutrition by improving access to food, a determinant of nutritional status. However, very little is understood about the mechanisms and the magnitude of the effects of macroeconomic food policies such as food price policies on nutritional status. Data collected by the Nutritional ...

Ernest H. Starling FRS (1866-1927) is remembered as a great physiologist; nevertheless a paper of his that is of substantial historical interest has dropped out of sight. It is a quantitative analysis of the effects of the Allied food blockade during World War I on the energy available to the ...

Individual dietary choices are primarily influenced by such considerations as taste, cost, convenience and nutritional value of foods. The current obesity epidemic has been linked to excessive consumption of added sugars and fat, as well as to sedentary lifestyles. Fat and sugar provide dietary energy at very low cost. Food ...

A habitat monitoring programme, the Northern Ireland Countryside Survey, carried out by the University of Ulster for the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, is described. It was based on a random sample of quarter kilometer grid squares, stratified by multivariate land classification. Estimates of change in habitat area ...

Background: China is undergoing a rapid nutrition transition. While malnutrition is still a problem in rural and low-income urban groups, adolescent obesity is becoming a major nutrition problem in urban areas and is needing special attention. Research on adolescents nutrition in China is erratic and insufficient. No research has been ...

The implementation of school nutrition policies poses a challenge to dietitians as they work with schools to increase the availability of nutritious foods. An analysis of the implementation of the Food and Nutrition Policy for New Brunswick Schools, proclaimed by the department of education in 1991, revealed four factors that ...

This paper reviews the major elements of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and considers those that can be applied to diet and nutrition. Tobacco and food policy have important differences: the two commodities have distinctly different health impacts, and food companies may be more responsive to public concerns ...

Community participation is believed to hold a number of benefits, including the incorporation of local knowledge in planning, generation of greater support for and sustainability of local actions and being consistent with democratic values. These claimed benefits were examined in upstate New York, where 3-d participatory planning events were convened ...

The present case-study, which is rather small in number of subjects but has a broad perspective, is part of a larger investigation designed to initiate development processes in working life in one specific region in Sweden. This study may serve as an example of ergonomic fieldwork with a gender perspective. ...

OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this paper are to (1) introduce the concept of upstream and downstream public health approaches and discuss diet assessment issues in that context, and (2) provide examples of diet assessment methods and challenges in assessing environmental factors influencing eating patterns. DESIGN: Dietary assessment of environmental factors ...

OBJECTIVE: To describe food-related policies and practices in secondary schools in Minnesota. DESIGN: Mailed anonymous survey including questions about the secondary school food environment and food-related practices and policies. SUBJECTS/SETTING: Members of a statewide professional organization for secondary school principals (n = 610; response rate: 463/610 = 75%). Of the ...

Food policies deliver large quantities of food relatively safely, but they are failing to deliver healthy diets. Policies fall into three broad categories: the supply of sufficient amounts of food (food security); the provision of food free from contamination (food safety); the provision of a healthy diet available to all ...

BACKGROUND: The current study uses an ecological approach to describe the food environment at 24 middle schools and multiple food sources' dietary fat contribution. METHODS: Five consecutive days were sampled for collection of school meals, a la carte, and student store data. Bag lunch contents were observed on 3 days. ...

This study examined classroom food practices and eating behavior of middle school teachers from 16 schools in a metropolitan area, located in the upper Midwest. In winter 1999-2000, teachers in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade were surveyed (response rate = 70%; n = 490/701). Questions addressed teachers' classroom food practices, ...

Prices of four low fat foods were reduced about 25% and prices of three high fat foods were increased about 10% to determine the impact on food purchases in a Midwestern suburban high school cafeteria to explore the impact of price on purchases. Low fat foods averaged about 13% of ...

Personal information is scarce in computer-mediated communication. So when information about the sender is attached with his or her e-mail, this could induce a powerful effect toward the receptor. Two experiments were carried out where males and females were solicited by e-mail to respond to a survey on their foods ...

This study set three objectives: 1) to examine the perceived influence of health concerns, labeling and nutrition information, taste, cost, availability, and peers on adolescents' food choices, particularly in the school cafeteria; 2) to determine whether these factors vary by gender, grade level, or adolescents' health and weight concerns; and ...

OBJECTIVE: To review the current regional distribution of echinococcosis in China for the purpose of providing the scientific data for the control of echinococcosis in the future. DATA SOURCES: All data in this paper were originated from related references in Chinese or English language Chinese journals except one from Lancet. ...