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McClements DJ. Designing healthier and more sustainable ultraprocessed foods. Compr Rev Food Sci Food Saf 2024; 23:e13331. [PMID: 38517032 DOI: 10.1111/1541-4337.13331] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2023] [Revised: 02/20/2024] [Accepted: 03/09/2024] [Indexed: 03/23/2024]
Abstract
The food industry has been extremely successful in creating a broad range of delicious, affordable, convenient, and safe food and beverage products. However, many of these products are considered to be ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) that contain ingredients and are processed in a manner that may cause adverse health effects. This review article introduces the concept of UPFs and briefly discusses food products that fall into this category, including beverages, baked goods, snacks, confectionary, prepared meals, dressings, sauces, spreads, and processed meat and meat analogs. It then discusses correlations between consumption levels of UPFs and diet-related chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes. The different reasons for the proposed ability of UPFs to increase the risk of these chronic diseases are then critically assessed, including displacement of whole foods, high energy densities, missing phytochemicals, contamination with packaging chemicals, hyperpalatability, harmful additives, rapid ingestion and digestion, and toxic reaction products. Then, potential strategies to overcome the current problems with UPFs are presented, including reducing energy density, balancing nutritional profile, fortification, increasing satiety response, modulating mastication and digestion, reengineering food structure, and precision processing. The central argument is that it may be possible to reformulate and reengineer many UPFs to improve their healthiness and sustainability, although this still needs to be proved using rigorous scientific studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Julian McClements
- Department of Food Science & Bioengineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
- Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
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2
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D'hondt J, Briers B. The visual analogue scale as a child-friendly measure of the unhealthy = tasty intuition. Appetite 2024; 192:107098. [PMID: 37939730 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.107098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2023] [Revised: 08/11/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023]
Abstract
Worldwide, obesity is a growing concern. The implicit belief that healthiness and tastiness in food are inversely related (the Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition or UTI) decreases healthy food consumption and increases the risk of obesity. Since also childhood obesity has increased at an alarming rate and a large component of adult obesity is established during childhood, questions about children's own food beliefs and preferences are important. However, methods currently used to assess the UTI are either unvalidated Likert scales or implicit measures that are time intensive and too complex to be used for children. Two studies presented here offer an alternative measurement - the simple visual analogue scale. The findings show that this measure is more effective in predicting dietary quality in adults and the frequency of healthy food consumption in children compared to more traditional measures. This simple and effective tool could be used by academics and health practitioners alike to better understand children's food beliefs at an early age, which is a critical step when addressing the increasing obesity problem.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan D'hondt
- Department of Work, Organisation and Society, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium; Area Marketing, Vlerick Business School, Reep 1, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Barbara Briers
- Department of Work, Organisation and Society, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium; Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics, Prinsstraat 13, B2000, Antwerp, Belgium.
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3
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Ha OR, Lim SL. The role of emotion in eating behavior and decisions. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1265074. [PMID: 38130967 PMCID: PMC10733500 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1265074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2023] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
The present paper aims to provide the latest perspectives and future directions on the association between emotions and eating behavior. We discussed individual differences in the impact of negative emotions on eating, emotional eating as disinhibited eating decisions with heightened reward values of and sensitivity to palatable foods in response to negative emotions and social isolation, in addition to emotional eating as maladaptive coping strategies under negative emotion and stress, hedonic (pleasure-oriented) eating decisions mediated by the brain reward system, and self-controlled (health-oriented) eating decisions mediated by the brain control system. Perspectives on future directions were addressed, including the development of early eating phenotypes in infancy, shared neural mechanisms mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in emotion and eating decision regulation, possible roles of interoception incorporating hunger and satiety signals, gut microbiome, the insula and the orbitofrontal cortex, and emotional processing capacities in hedonic eating and weight gain.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Seung-Lark Lim
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri – Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
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Lim SL, Bruce AS, Shook RP. Neurocomputational mechanisms of food and physical activity decision-making in male adolescents. Sci Rep 2023; 13:6145. [PMID: 37061558 PMCID: PMC10105706 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32823-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2022] [Accepted: 04/03/2023] [Indexed: 04/17/2023] Open
Abstract
We examined the neurocomputational mechanisms in which male adolescents make food and physical activity decisions and how those processes are influenced by body weight and physical activity levels. After physical activity and dietary assessments, thirty-eight males ages 14-18 completed the behavioral rating and fMRI decision tasks for food and physical activity items. The food and physical activity self-control decisions were significantly correlated with each other. In both, taste- or enjoyment-oriented processes were negatively associated with successful self-control decisions, while health-oriented processes were positively associated. The correlation between taste/enjoyment and healthy attribute ratings predicted actual laboratory food intake and physical activities (2-week activity monitoring). fMRI data showed the decision values of both food and activity are encoded in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, suggesting both decisions share common reward value-related circuits at the time of choice. Compared to the group with overweight/obese, the group with normal weight showed stronger brain activations in the cognitive control, multisensory integration, and motor control regions during physical activity decisions. For both food and physical activity, self-controlled decisions utilize similar computational and neurobiological mechanisms, which may provide insights into how to promote healthy food and physical activity decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Seung-Lark Lim
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 5030 Cherry St, Kansas City, MO, 64110, USA.
| | - Amanda S Bruce
- Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Mercy, 610 E. 2nd St, Kansas City, MO, 66108, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Kansas Medical Center, 3901 Rainbow Blvd, Kansas City, KS, 66160, USA
| | - Robin P Shook
- Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Mercy, 610 E. 2nd St, Kansas City, MO, 66108, USA
- School of Medicine, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2411 Holmes, Kansas City, MO, 64108, USA
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Wennerhold L, Friese M. Challenges in the conceptualization of trait self‐control as a psychological construct. SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY COMPASS 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/spc3.12726] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Lasse Wennerhold
- Department of Psychology Saarland University Saarbruecken Germany
| | - Malte Friese
- Department of Psychology Saarland University Saarbruecken Germany
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Ha OR, Bruce AS, Killian HJ, Davis AM, Lim SL. Shared Dynamics of Food Decision-Making in Mother-Child Dyads. Front Psychol 2021; 12:695388. [PMID: 34456810 PMCID: PMC8387796 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.695388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2021] [Accepted: 07/12/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
This study explored risk parameters of obesity in food decision-making in mother-child dyads. We tested 45 children between 8–12 years and their biological mothers to measure the decision weights of food health attributes, the decision weights of food taste attributes, self-regulated food decisions, and self-reported self-control scores. Maternal body mass index (BMI), and children's BMI-percentiles-for-age were also measured. We found a positive correlation between children's and their mothers' decision weights of taste attributes in food decision-making. We also found a positive correlation between children's BMI %iles and their mothers' BMIs. Children with overweight/obesity demonstrated lower correlations between health and taste ratings and a lower percentage of self-regulated food decisions (i.e., resisting to eat tasty but unhealthy foods or choosing to eat not-tasty but healthy foods) than children with healthy weight. Our findings suggested that the decision weights of taste attributes and weight status shared similar patterns in mother-child dyads. Also, the findings suggested that establishing dynamics of unhealthy food-decision making may increase the risk of childhood obesity. Helping children to develop the dynamics of healthy food-decision making by increasing the importance of health while decreasing the importance of taste may promote resilience to susceptibility to unhealthy eating and weight gain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oh-Ryeong Ha
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Amanda S Bruce
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, United States.,Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Haley J Killian
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Ann M Davis
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, United States.,Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Seung-Lark Lim
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
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Lawless M, Shriver LH, Hubbs-Tait L, Topham GL, Swindle T, Harrist AW. Bidirectional Associations between Restrained Eating and Body Mass Index in Middle Childhood. Nutrients 2021; 13:1485. [PMID: 33924792 PMCID: PMC8146129 DOI: 10.3390/nu13051485] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2021] [Revised: 04/26/2021] [Accepted: 04/26/2021] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
The nature of the association between dietary restraint and weight has been examined in adult samples, but much less is known about this relationship among children. The current study examined the transactional associations among restrained eating behavior and weight among boys and girls during middle childhood. Data for this study came from 263 children participating in the Families and Schools for Health Project (FiSH), a longitudinal study of the psychosocial correlates of childhood obesity. Participants were interviewed by trained researchers in their third- and fourth-grade year when they completed questionnaires and anthropometric assessments. Dietary restraint was assessed using the restrained eating subscale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), and weight was assessed using Body Mass Index z-scores (BMIz). Bidirectional associations between variables were examined using cross-lagged models controlling for children's sex, ethnicity, and weight in first grade. Results indicated that weight in grade 3 was related to greater dietary restraint in grade 4 (B = 0.20, p = 0.001), but dietary restraint in grade 3 was not associated with weight in grade 4 (B = 0.01, p = 0.64). Neither child sex nor race/ethnicity were associated with BMIz or dietary restraint at either time point. Findings from this study advance the existing limited understanding of eating behavior development among children and show that weight predicts increases in children's dietary restraint in middle childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meg Lawless
- Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina Greensboro, 319 College Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA;
| | - Lenka H. Shriver
- Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina Greensboro, 319 College Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA;
| | - Laura Hubbs-Tait
- Department of Human Development & Family Science, Oklahoma State University, 341 Human Sciences, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA;
| | - Glade L. Topham
- Department of Applied Human Sciences, Kansas State University, 101 Campus Creek Complex, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA;
| | - Taren Swindle
- Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Science, 4301 West Markham, Little Rock, AR 72205, USA;
| | - Amanda W. Harrist
- Department of Human Development & Family Science, Oklahoma State University, 244 Human Sciences, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA;
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Ha OR, Killian HJ, Davis AM, Lim SL, Bruce JM, Sotos JJ, Nelson SC, Bruce AS. Promoting Resilience to Food Commercials Decreases Susceptibility to Unhealthy Food Decision-Making. Front Psychol 2020; 11:599663. [PMID: 33343472 PMCID: PMC7738621 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.599663] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2020] [Accepted: 11/10/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Children are vulnerable to adverse effects of food advertising. Food commercials are known to increase hedonic, taste-oriented, and unhealthy food decisions. The current study examined how promoting resilience to food commercials impacted susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making in children. To promote resilience to food commercials, we utilized the food advertising literacy intervention intended to enhance cognitive skepticism and critical thinking, and decrease positive attitudes toward commercials. Thirty-six children aged 8–12 years were randomly assigned to the food advertising literacy intervention or the control condition. Eighteen children received four brief intervention sessions via video over 1 week period. In each session, children watched six food commercials with interspersed embedded intervention narratives. While watching food commercials and narratives, children were encouraged to speak their thoughts out loud spontaneously (“think-aloud”), which provided children's attitudes toward commercials. Eighteen children in the control condition had four control sessions over 1 week, and watched the same food commercials without intervention narratives while thinking aloud. The first and last sessions were held in the laboratory, and the second and third sessions were held at the children's homes. Susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making was indicated by the decision weights of taste attributes, taste perception, food choices, ad libitum snacking, and cognitive and affective attitudes toward food commercials. As hypothesized, the intervention successfully decreased susceptibility to unhealthy food decision-making evidenced by reduced decision weights of the taste in food decisions, decreased tasty perception of unhealthy foods, and increased cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward food commercials. In addition, as children's opinions assimilated to intervention narratives, their cognitive skepticism and critical thinking toward commercials increased. The aforementioned results were not shown in the control condition. However, this brief intervention was not enough to change actual food choices or food consumption. Results of this study suggest that promoting resilience to food commercials by enhancing cognitive skepticism and critical thinking effectively reduced children's susceptibility to unhealthy food-decision making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oh-Ryeong Ha
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Haley J Killian
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Ann M Davis
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, United States.,Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Seung-Lark Lim
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Jared M Bruce
- Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Jarrod J Sotos
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Samuel C Nelson
- Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, United States
| | - Amanda S Bruce
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, United States.,Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, Kansas City, MO, United States
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Pearce AL, Adise S, Roberts NJ, White C, Geier CF, Keller KL. Individual differences in the influence of taste and health impact successful dietary self-control: A mouse tracking food choice study in children. Physiol Behav 2020; 223:112990. [PMID: 32505786 PMCID: PMC7408374 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.112990] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2019] [Revised: 05/19/2020] [Accepted: 05/27/2020] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
In order to improve dietary quality among children, there is a need to understand how they make decisions about what foods to eat. This study used a mouse tracking food choice task to better understand how attributes such as health and taste contribute to food decisions among 70 children aged 7-to-11 years old. Children rated health, taste, and desire to eat for 76 common foods that varied in energy density and then used a computer mouse to select which of two presented foods they would like to eat. The presented food pairs were based on children's own ratings of taste and health so that some trials required self-control to choose the healthier option (i.e., healthy/not tasty paired with unhealthy/tasty). Children's body mass index (BMI) percentile was not associated with number of healthy choices. To examine mouse trajectories, we replicated previous analytic techniques and applied a novel technique, time-varying effects modeling (TVEM). Results showed that desire to eat impacted food decision-making sooner than taste and health during trials that required self-control, with TVEM showing that early discounting of desire to eat enabled healthier choices. However, these temporal dynamics varied by age, BMI percentile, and overall self-control performance in the task. When the less healthy food was chosen (i.e., self-control failure), older children and children with better overall self-control were more influenced by taste and desire to eat. However, children with higher BMI percentiles showed stronger discounting (i.e., negative influence) of taste when choosing the healthier food. Together this highlights how the influence of hedonic food attributes on food decision-making varies by individual child-level characteristics. Understanding individual differences in the cognitive processes that support healthy food choices in children may help identify targets for interventions aimed at improving child nutrition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alaina L Pearce
- Nutritional Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States of America.
| | - Shana Adise
- Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States of America
| | - Nicole J Roberts
- Human Development & Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States of America
| | - Corey White
- Department of Psychology, Missouri Western State University, St. Joseph, MO 64507, United States of America
| | - Charles F Geier
- Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 05401, United States of America
| | - Kathleen L Keller
- Nutritional Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States of America; Food Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, United States of America
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Russell CG, Russell A. "Food" and "non-food" self-regulation in childhood: a review and reciprocal analysis. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 2020; 17:33. [PMID: 32151265 PMCID: PMC7063723 DOI: 10.1186/s12966-020-00928-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2019] [Accepted: 02/10/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND In developmental science, there is an extensive literature on non-food related self-regulation in childhood, where several domains relating to emotions, actions and cognitions have been identified. There is now growing attention to food related self-regulation in childhood, especially difficulties with ASR, and the consequences for weight gain and adiposity. The aim of this narrative review was to conduct a reciprocal analysis of self-regulation in the food and non-food domains in childhood (referred to as appetite self-regulation (ASR) and general self-regulation (GSR) respectively). The focus was on commonalities and differences in key concepts and underpinning processes. METHODS Databases and major journals were searched using terms such as self-regulation, appetite self-regulation, or self-regulation of energy intake, together with associated constructs (e.g., Executive Function, Effortful Control, delay-of-gratification). This was followed by backward and forward snowballing. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The scholarship on GSR in childhood has had a focus on the role of the cognitively-oriented Executive Function (EF), the temperamentally-based Effortful Control (EC) and the recursive interplay between bottom-up (reactive, emotion driven, approach or avoidance) and top-down (cognitive, conscious decision-making) processes. "Hot" and "cool/cold" EF and self-regulation situations have been distinguished. There were some parallels between GSR and ASR in these areas, but uncertainty about the contribution of EF and EC to ASR in young children. Possible differences between the contribution to ASR-related outcomes of delay-of-gratification in food and non-food tasks were apparent. Unique elements of ASR were identified; associated with psychological, biological and neurological responses to food and bottom-up processes. A diverse number of situations or elements connected to ASR exist: for example, energy balance homeostasis, caloric compensation, hunger regulation, satiation, satiety, energy density of food, eating in the absence of hunger, emotional eating, etc. CONCLUSIONS: Self-regulation in food and non-food domains are amenable to a reciprocal analysis. We argue that self-regulation of appetite should be added as a domain under the umbrella of self-regulation in childhood along with the other non-food related domains. This could lead to a broader understanding of self-regulation in childhood, and generate novel lines of enquiry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Catherine G Russell
- Faculty of Health, School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC, 3125, Australia.
| | - Alan Russell
- College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Sturt Rd, Bedford Park, South Australia, 5042, Australia
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