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The purpose of this study was to describe the content of food advertisements broadcast during prime‐time network programs and determine what changes have occurred over the last 30 years. The sample comprised foods advertisements (N = 38, N = 31, N = 91, N = 105, N = 108) from 1971, 1977, 1988, 1992 and 1998, respectively. Of the commercials shown in 1977, 1988, 1992 and 1998, 31, 35, 20, and 15 per cent, respectively, were for food advertisements (data were unavailable for 1971). Using simple linear regression, the hourly rate for total commercials is increasing significantly (p = 0.04) by 1.4 commercials per hour each year. However, the hourly rate for food advertisements is not changing over time in a statistically significant fashion. There is very strong evidence of an association between the type of food advertised and year (chi‐square = 62.691, p < 0.001). The top four categories contributing to the chi‐square are: restaurants, low‐nutrient beverages, protein‐rich foods, and breads and cereals which, together, account for 75 per cent of the chi‐square value. For the past three decades, the “prime‐time diet” has comprised mostly low nutrient density foods that are promoted by slender, healthy actors.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the sodium content displayed on the labels of conventional processed food products (C) and of those with nutrition claims suggesting the absence or reduced levels of nutrients (AR).

Cross-sectional study analyzing the ingredients list, nutrition facts and nutrition claims on food labels. Subjects: all processed food products with added salt or additives containing sodium that were for sale in a large supermarket in Brazil from October to December 2011.

All 3,449 products were analyzed and categorized into 66 groups according to Brazilian legislation. The median of sodium content in the AR was 42.7 percent higher than in the C (p=0.007). In 33.3 percent of the groups there was difference in sodium content between AR and C (p < 0.05) and in 68.2 percent of these the sodium content was higher in AR. The variation range of sodium in products from the same group reached 2,905.0 mg in C and 1,712.0 mg in AR. Even when the median of sodium was lower in the AR, the minimum sodium values were lower in the C.

Comparisons of sodium content of conventional and AR processed food are scarce in the literature, especially covering all food for sale in a large supermarket. To the best of the knowledge, this is the first census making this comparisons in Latin America.

There is a strong need for nutrition education strategies that foster healthy eating from a young age in Mauritius, as the island has one of the highest rates of diet‐related diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardio‐vascular diseases in the world. In order to be effective, the strategies should focus on current eating habits of adolescents. However, there is limited up‐to‐date information on the eating habits of Mauritian adolescents. This study, thus, aims to provide up‐to‐date data on the dietary habits of Mauritian adolescents.

A cross‐sectional study on the dietary habits of school adolescents (13‐16 years old) was conducted in 2003/2004. Stratified random sampling was used to select study participants (n = 315) from 12 secondary schools across the island. Data were collected using a self‐administered questionnaire.

Foods that are high in fats, sugar or salt and low in dietary fibre were commonly consumed by adolescents. The most popular sources of nutrition information were parents, the Science and Home Economics teachers and print materials. More than half of the adolescents (54 per cent) regularly gave dietary advice to their friends and relatives, and 41.2 per cent prepared foods at home on their own. The majority of adolescents (81.2 per cent) expressed their interest in learning more about nutrition at school.

Findings should provide a sound basis for local nutrition educators to identify priority areas, and thereafter develop appropriate health promotion strategies in collaboration with health and education authorities.

This study provides up‐to‐date baseline data on the eating habits of young adolescents in Mauritius. Moreover, it is the first study of its kind to focus on the food skills of Mauritian adolescents.

This paper aims to study the use of pumpkin pulp and its by-products in food formulation. Pumpkins are important and useful in the food industry. However, only the pulp is used, and the shell and seeds are wasted, which represents an important food waste.

A systematic review was performed by searching electronic databases relating to the physicochemical, textural and sensory effects of the pumpkin pulp and its by-products’ incorporation into foods. No human subjects were involved, and ethical approval was not required.

Pumpkin seeds and shell have been included in quite a variety of products. The primary effects on the physicochemical properties of bakery products, dairy products, beverages and snacks are the increase in energy, protein, iron, calcium, carotene content and textural properties (hardness, chewiness, snapping force and viscosity).

Limitations comprise the heterogeneity of the studies included, which causes varied results.

It was evidenced that pumpkin is already included in food products, especially in bakery products. However, there are not many products where the shell and seeds are used. Therefore, it is a field to be explored, as these by-products have great potential both to enrich food products and to reduce food waste contributing to sustainability.

This study to investigate several issues related to food choice and consumption patterns in different countries, including health-related factors; economic and availability aspects; emotional determinants; social, cultural and religious influences; marketing and advertising campaigns; and finally environmental concerns.

The present study was based on a questionnaire that was exclusively prepared for the project, and which was applied to collect data in different countries, in particular Croatia, Egypt, Italy, Greece and Portugal, which are typically associated with the Mediterranean diet (MD).

The results obtained allowed, in general, to conclude that in all five countries the motivations related to health as well as environment and politics were the more relevant to determine people’s eating habits (scores varying from 0.3 to 0.7). Women were more influenced by eating motivations than men, and people with moderate exercise were more susceptible to health and environmental motivations and less to emotional, social or marketing motivations (p < 0.001 in all cases). It was also observed that people who adopted a special diet were more prone to eating motivations and that the emotional motivations were more pronounced in people with eating disorders (p < 0.001). Finally, people without chronic diseases or allergies were even more influenced by health motivations than those who actually suffered from these health problems (p < 0.001 in both cases).

This work is important because of the multinational coverage, thus allowing to evaluate the most relevant factors that influenced the food choices of the populations around the Mediterranean Sea, sharing the common link to the MD. The study allowed concluding that, in general, the food choices were primarily determined by health factors and also by concerns related to the environment and sustainability as well as by political influences.

The study aimed to analyse the nutritional quality of self-proposed or prescribed weight-loss diets shared by female Korean adolescents through a social media platform and identified potential dietary problems.

A total of 317 weight-loss diets, shared by 107 female adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 in April 2019, were collected from three Kakao Open Chat rooms of which the main topic was “weight-loss diet”. The weight-loss diets were converted to daily energy and nutrient intake.

Approximately two-thirds of the subjects were normal or underweight, and more than half of them were limiting energy intake to less than half of the recommended daily amounts. The average daily intake of energy and most nutrients did not meet the standard intake levels. Approximately 20% of the subjects were breakfast skippers, while 8 and 5% were dinner and lunch skippers, respectively. Notably, meal skippers tended to fast longer and have an uneven distribution of daily energy intake per meal. The percentages of energy contribution from macronutrients, particularly carbohydrates, also deviated more from the acceptable range in the meal skippers. The weight-loss diets of the subjects with particularly low daily energy intake were categorised into simplified, unbalanced and nutrient-poor, energy-dense meals. Overall, the nutritional quality of the self-proposed or prescribed weight-loss diets was poor. More effective and proactive educational interventions in school environments should be developed to promote positive eating behaviours in adolescents and free them from their obsession with body image.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to analyse the nutritional quality of female adolescents' self-proposed or prescribed weight-loss diets.

An effective means to promote optimal nutrition for any group of consumers is to expand nutrition professionals' understanding of the cohort's food choice processes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the situated food choice influences of the videogames subculture; a known consumption enclave for calorie dense low nutrient foods. The investigation is conducted by application of an abbreviated version of Furst et al.'s model of the food choice process as a conceptual framework.

This investigation uses an interpretive research strategy and adopts a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis. In total, 14 purposively sampled semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews were carried out with members of the videogames subculture.

Informants' food choices and preferences during social gameplay were strongly influenced by beliefs related to appropriate food behaviour and ideal characteristics of foods suitable for grazing. All informants described some constraints imposed by the physical surroundings and environmental nature of gameplay such as issues of messiness and inability to eat with utensils while gaming. Social structure played an important role in informants' food choices, and much of this structure was built around the hedonic intersection of food and gameplay. Informants' food choices were also influenced by poor cooking abilities and unwillingness to devote much effort to meal preparation during gameplay.

Used in conjunction with theories of behavioural change, the insights gathered here should help inform interventions and communications strategies. Both commercial and social marketing domains have a role to play in positively influencing gamers' diets.

The paper offers social marketers insight into the influences that underpin unhealthful food choices within the videogames subculture and how to positively bring about change.

The purpose of this research is to test a comprehensive nutrition program developed specifically to target low‐income parents of young school‐aged children and determine whether the programme‐resulted in changes in parents' knowledge, attitude, self‐confidence, and behaviours related to both their and their child's nutrition in relation to fruit and vegetable intake.

This study used a quasi‐experimental pre‐test/post‐test design in which parent centers were selected to participate as either intervention or control sites. The primary method of data collection was self‐administered questionnaires.

The results show significant positive changes in parent knowledge, food behaviors, and home environment. No changes were observed in parents' attitudes; however, parent attitudes were high at baseline.

This work reinforces the importance of developing well designed interventions that specifically target the intended audience and intended outcomes.

This is one of the few studies that have examined the potential and value of nutrition‐focused intervention targeting low‐income and predominantly Hispanic populations with the potential goal of impacting children.

The purpose of this paper is to find the impact of food price volatility on child health and education attainment in urban areas of Pakistan. This research also compares the two variables among the two time periods: the period of low volatile food prices (2014‒2015) and the period of high volatile food prices (2013‒2014). The rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance are used as proxies for child health and child education, respectively.

This study employs propensity score matching (PSM) technique introduced by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), to overcome the selection bias problem in the observational studies.

The closing part of the paper concludes that both the rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance are significantly poorer for the households of Pakistan in the control period (of high food price volatility) as compared to the treated period (of low food price volatility). After controlling the problem of selection bias through PSM technique, it is found that there is a further increase in the rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance. It proves that the data were biased before applying the matching technique.

This study lengthens the literature by identifying the impact of food price volatility on child health and education of urban households of Pakistan, using high frequency data of PSLM/HIES, with the help of semi-parametric technique of matching. This type of micro-level research has not been conducted (nationally or internationally) so far; therefore, it would possibly open a sphere for policy makers to implement the suitable policies.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2019-0275.