The visual analogue scale as a child-friendly measure of the unhealthy = tasty intuition

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.

The Relationship between Plant-Based Diet Index and Semen Parameters of Men with Infertility: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND

Infertility is a major clinical problem that affects people psychologically and medically. For the past 40 years, studies have linked nearly 50% of childlessness to male infertility. It is worth noting that unlike other factors contributing to infertility, diet is a tunable factor and can be applied in counseling infertile men. The goal of this study was to determine the relationship between plant diet index (PDI) and semen parameters in Iranian infertile men.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, dietary intake was determined by a valid 168-item questionnaire (FFQ). In this study, four dependent semen parameters, including total sperm motility (TSM), sperm concentration (SC), normal sperm morphology (NSM), and semen volume (SV) were measured.

RESULTS

Results of this study stated that greater adherence to the healthful plant-based diet index (hPDI), can significantly increase sperm density and motility in men, as well as greater adherence to the PDI dietary pattern is related to a lower risk of sperm volume deficiency, and ultimately more adherence to the unhealthful plant-based diet index (uPDI), can reduce the risk of sperm motility.

CONCLUSION

In this study, for the first time, the relationship between PDI, hPDI, uPDI and male infertility was evaluated. Altogether, this study demonstrated that nutrition has an impact on semen quality and fertility of men.

The nature of UK supermarkets' policies on checkout food and associations with healthfulness and type of food displayed: cross-sectional study

Background

Food choices are often determined by stimuli from our immediate surroundings, including strategic placement in shops to encourage impulse purchases. One example of this is food in shop checkout areas. Recently a number of UK supermarkets have voluntarily committed to providing healthier checkout foods. The aim of this study was to document the nature of current UK supermarket checkout food policies; determine whether there are any differences in the healthfulness and type of food displayed at checkouts in supermarkets according to the presence or nature of policies; and determine whether supermarkets are adhering to their checkout food policies.

Methods

Survey of checkout food policies. Cross-sectional observations in 69 supermarkets (covering 14 store formats) in the East of England in Feb-May 2017 of the number and type of checkout foods on each ‘checkout journey’ (each possible route through the checkout area). Checkout foods were categorised as less healthy or healthier, using the UK Food Standard’s Agency’s Nutrient Profile Model, and into food groups. Checkout food policies were categorised as clear and consistent, vague or inconsistent, or absent.

Results

Checkout food policies differed between store formats in some supermarket groups. Across the 14 store formats included, two had no checkout food policy, six had ‘clear and consistent’ policies, and six ‘vague or inconsistent’ policies. In supermarkets with clear and consistent policies there were a median of 13 products per checkout journey, of which 35% were less healthy. Comparable figures for supermarkets with vague or inconsistent, and absent policies were 15 (57%) and 39 (90%) respectively (ps for trend < 0.001).

Whilst most supermarkets with a clear and consistent checkout food policy were fully adherent to their policy, those with vague or inconsistent policies were not.

Conclusions

Most UK supermarkets have checkout food policies, but not all are clear and consistent. Supermarkets with clear and consistent policies display fewer checkout foods and a lower proportion of these are less healthy than in other supermarkets. Supermarkets with clear and consistent policies adhere well to these. More stores should be encouraged to develop a clear and consistent checkout food policy. This may require non-voluntary intervention.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12966-018-0684-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

An audit of food and beverage advertising on the Sydney metropolitan train network: regulation and policy implications

BACKGROUND

Increased marketing of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods has been identified as a driver of the global obesity epidemic and a priority area for preventative efforts. Local and international research has focused on the unhealthiness of television advertising, with limited research into the growing outdoor advertising industry. This study aimed to examine the extent of food and beverage advertising on the Sydney metropolitan train network, and to assess the nutritional quality of advertised products against the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.

METHODS

All 178 train stations on the Sydney metropolitan train network were surveyed in summer and winter. A survey tool was developed to collect information for all advertisements on and immediately surrounding the train station. Information included product, brand, location and advertisement format. Advertisements were coded by nutrition category, product subcategory and size. Chi-square, ANOVA and ANCOVA tests were conducted to test for differences in the amount of food and beverage advertising by season and area socioeconomic status (SES).

RESULTS

Of 6931 advertisements identified, 1915 (27.6%) were promoting a food or beverage. The majority of food and beverage advertisements were for unhealthy products; 84.3% were classified as discretionary, 8.0% core and 7.6% miscellaneous. Snack foods and sugar-sweetened beverages were the most frequently advertised products, regardless of season. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo were the largest advertisers on the network, contributing 10.9% and 6.5% of total advertisements respectively. There was no difference in the mean number of food and beverage advertisements by area SES, but the proportion of advertising that was for discretionary foods was highest in low SES areas (41.9%, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The results indicate that, irrespective of season, food and beverage advertisements across the Sydney metropolitan train network are overwhelmingly for unhealthy (discretionary) products. The results of this study highlight the inadequacy of Australia's voluntary self-regulatory system in protecting members of the public from exposure to unhealthy food advertising. Regulatory action by government, such as placing a cap on the amount of unhealthy food advertisements, or requiring a proportion of all advertising to be for the promotion of healthy foods, is required to address this issue.

The influence of parental practices on child promotive and preventive food consumption behaviors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

The family is an important social context where children learn and adopt eating behaviors. Specifically, parents play the role of health promoters, role models, and educators in the lives of children, influencing their food cognitions and choices. This study attempts to systematically review empirical studies examining the influence of parents on child food consumption behavior in two contexts: one promotive in nature (e.g., healthy food), and the other preventive in nature (e.g., unhealthy food).

Methods

From a total of 6,448 titles extracted from Web of Science, ERIC, PsycINFO and PubMED, seventy eight studies met the inclusion criteria for a systematic review, while thirty seven articles contained requisite statistical information for meta-analysis. The parental variables extracted include active guidance/education, restrictive guidance/rule-making, availability, accessibility, modeling, pressure to eat, rewarding food consumption, rewarding with verbal praise, and using food as reward. The food consumption behaviors examined include fruits and vegetables consumption, sugar-sweetened beverages, and snack consumption.

Results

Results indicate that availability (Healthy: r = .24, p < .001; Unhealthy: r = .34, p < .001) and parental modeling effects (Healthy: r = .32, p < .001; Unhealthy: r = .35, p < .001) show the strongest associations with both healthy and unhealthy food consumption. In addition, the efficacy of some parenting practices might be dependent on the food consumption context and the age of the child. For healthy foods, active guidance/education might be more effective (r = .15, p < .001). For unhealthy foods, restrictive guidance/rule-making might be more effective (r = −.11, p < .01). For children 7 and older, restrictive guidance/rule-making could be more effective in preventing unhealthy eating (r = − .20, p < .05). For children 6 and younger, rewarding with verbal praise can be more effective in promoting healthy eating (r = .26, p < .001) and in preventing unhealthy eating (r = − .08, p < .01).

Conclusions

This study illustrates that a number of parental behaviors are strong correlates of child food consumption behavior. More importantly, this study highlights 3 main areas in parental influence of child food consumption that are understudied: (1) active guidance/education, (2) psychosocial mediators, and (3) moderating influence of general parenting styles.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12966-017-0501-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Unhealthy how? Implicit and explicit affective evaluations of different types of unhealthy foods

The present study examines the utility of distinguishing nutritional characteristics in implicit and explicit affective evaluations of foods, both nomothetically and idiographically. To this end, we employ indirect and direct versions of the affect misattribution procedure (AMP; Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005) to assess affective evaluations of foods that vary along dimensions of added fat and added sugar. Normatively, both added fat and added sugar are associated with more positive affective evaluations. Idiographically, both hunger and external eating are associated with more positive fat-based affective evaluations. Patterns of results were similar across implicit and explicit affective evaluations, inconsistent with a dual-process conceptualization of affective evaluation. Overall, the current work supports the utility of continuing to employ more stringently characterized image stimuli with known nutritional properties, as well as structurally similar measures of implicit and explicit affective evaluations in future work.