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Nutrition labels provide a cost-effective method of conveying nutrition information to consumers. This study aimed to assess the use of nutrition facts panels, knowledge of traffic light labelling (TLL) and perceived healthiness of food items using TLL among consumers.

A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted among adults in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (n = 1,322). TLL knowledge score was derived for each participant. Conjoint analysis was used to calculate the utilities and relative importance of the perceived healthiness scores for four attributes (fat, saturated fat, total sugar, salt) at the aggregate level.

Participants had a positive attitude towards TLL but were less familiar with TLL than the nutrition facts panel (47.4 vs 85.8%). The mean TLL knowledge score was 3.6 out of 7 (51.6%). Younger age, higher education, higher income, and health-related qualifications were associated with higher scores. Conjoint analysis showed that participants tend to choose products with greener labels, especially for sugars (80.1%) and avoid red labels for fats. Sugars had the highest percentage value of relative importance compared to the other attributes (27.1%).

The study outcomes offer valuable insights into the extent of consumer awareness, comprehension and utilization of nutrition facts panels in the UAE. These findings contribute essential knowledge for a deeper understanding of the impact of nutrition labels on consumer behaviour and decision-making in the region.

The aim of this study is to explore older adults' nutrition information needs. The paper seeks to describe the development and findings of a nutrition information needs assessment among older adults, with the application of principles of adult learning.

A telephone survey among 321 older adults who were between 60 and 80 years old in the Midwest was conducted. The study was guided by principles of adult learning, and by self‐efficacy, a key‐construct of social cognitive theory.

The majority reported to be white, with a mean age of 69 years. In total, 95 percent rated their knowledge about nutrition, and their interest in healthy eating as excellent/very good/ or good. Preferred nutrition information sources were health professionals, sources they have at home, nutrition classes, flyers/brochures/health newsletters, and public libraries. The majority was interested in information about eating healthfully, heart healthy diets, and strategies for healthy eating. The majority stated they think about taste and feeling better when they choose their food, and fewer participants stated they think about cost, convenience, losing weight, and better appearance. Major motivations to eat healthier were maintaining their health status, preventing disease and disability, as well as personal fitness.

This research is an example of how using adult learning principles in combination with behavior change theories may be helpful in the assessment of nutrition information needs among older adults, and the design of nutrition information interventions in the future.

This study aims to develop and empirically assess an instrument for measuring nutrition knowledge aligned to the North Carolina (NC) Healthful Living Essential Standards for teaching nutrition. The instrument was critically evaluated and used to assess nutrition knowledge in Eastern NC students.

Researchers evaluated 250 students in 16, eighth-grade classrooms using a 22-question researcher-developed nutrition knowledge questionnaire. Assessment questions were aligned with NC Healthful Living Essential Standards, which suggest students should be able to: apply tools to plan healthy nutrition, create strategies to improve dietary intake, create plans for lifelong health, and evaluate health information and products. Survey reliability and validity (face) were evaluated prior to study implementation. Descriptive statistics for individual items, total and individual standard scores were analyzed. Instrument efficacy was evaluated using item-difficulty and discrimination indexes.

The survey displayed appropriate levels of item difficulty with three exceptions: two questions were identified as too difficult, and one as too easy. The majority of items also displayed acceptable (>0.20) or excellent (>0.40) discrimination (17 out of 20). Average total nutrition knowledge score was 11.82-3.26 (53.7 per cent). Within aligned standards, students scored highest in creating plans for lifelong health (79 per cent) and lowest in evaluating health information (37.6 per cent).

Study findings suggest eighth-grade students may only possess half the nutrition knowledge standards expected in the eighth grade. More instrument development is needed to supply researchers with standard means of assessing nutrition knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a quantitative study of the food environment designed to measure aspects of support for healthy eating.

An ecological view of eating behaviour was taken by examining the food environment that surrounded a military population of interest. Food outlets (n = 34) were assessed using the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in store (NEMS-S), Nutrition Environment Measures Study in restaurants (NEMS-R) and military Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool (mNEAT) instruments to determine how well food outlets supported healthy eating.

Despite better-than-average provision of healthy options on-base, the total environment surrounding the military base barely supports healthy eating. Average support to healthy eating was 45 per cent (NEMS) or 27 per cent (mNEAT) of support that could be measured. Individuals accessing this food environment would find few healthy alternatives, little information directing them to healthy choices and pricing and promotion that drives unhealthy eating behaviours.

This study focused on one food environment; replication is recommended to establish foundation data for benchmarking outlets, and further develop these measures for Australian settings. Future studies may assess the media environment to further extend the ecological model used.

A method to measure the food environment is demonstrated which provides formative research insights for use when planning social marketing interventions. Consideration of these influences together with intra- and inter-personal influences offer the potential to better design social marketing healthy eating interventions, by addressing multiple levels within an ecological framework.

This paper answers calls for social marketers to consider the influence of the surrounding environment, using methods not previously used in Australian settings.

Although anemia during pregnancy is common in the USA, socio-demographic factors make pregnant women enrolled in Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program more vulnerable than the general population. The purpose of this study was to examine the socio-demographic characteristics, blood hemoglobin concentrations, nutrition knowledge and potential associations among these factors in a sample of pregnant women participating in the WIC program.

A cross-sectional study using survey methodology was conducted. In total, 60 pregnant women who were between 12 and 24 weeks of gestation and were carrying a single fetus were recruited from two WIC clinics. Overall nutrition knowledge was assessed with 42 questions arranged into three subscales. Participants’ scores were transformed into tertiles. WIC program records were used to record blood hemoglobin values. Principal component analysis was used to validate the knowledge subscales. Correlational and multivariate regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship among variables.

Prevalence of anemia among the participants was higher than the national averages. Only 10 per cent of participants scored in the high tertile for nutrition knowledge. Anemia-during-pregnancy knowledge score was positively correlated with blood hemoglobin concentrations (r = 0.23, p < 0.05), and it was also a predictor of blood hemoglobin levels (R2 = 0.364, p = 0.02).

This is the first study to report on the knowledge of anemia, anemia during pregnancy and preventive measures among pregnant women enrolled in the WIC program.

Bioelectrical impedance vector analysis (BIVA) and phase angle (PA) have importance in assessing nutritional and prognosis, and this study hypothesized that these measurements can have a relationship with nutritional risk and outcomes. This study aims to analyze the association between Nutrition Risk in the Critically ill (NUTRIC) score and bioelectrical impedance measures with hospital mortality in critically ill patients.

A prospective, cohort study was performed with a consecutive sample of patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU), between January and June 2017 at a hospital university in Northwest Brazil. The NUTRIC score and the bioelectric measures, such as resistance (R), reactance (Xc), PA and BIVA, were completed within the first 24 h of admission. The Student’s t or Mann–Whitney, Pearson’s or Spearman’s coefficient and Fisher’s exact tests and BIVA were used for statistical analyses.

The sample consisted of 81, with a mean age of 57 (16.7) years, with 60.5% women. It was detected that PA and Xc were lower (p < 0.001), and age was higher (p < 0.001) in a high nutritional-risk group. It was found an association between low nutritional risk and hospital discharge (p < 0.001), and that individuals who died spent more days in the ICU (p = 0.0375), had significantly lower PA and Xc values (p = 0.043 and p = 0.0172, respectively) and higher NUTRIC scores (<0.0001). There was a displacement of the mean impedance vector in men and women with high nutritional risk (p = 0.0037 and p = 0.004, respectively).

The height measurement was estimated using predictive formulas, which may affect the accuracy of the values; BIA was performed only upon admission of the patient to the ICU and the study population was heterogeneous, as it is a general ICU.

This paper shows that, in critically ill patients, nutritional screening and the assessment of bioelectrical measures help in clinical-nutritional decisions, and were able to predict outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to assess nutritional habits and body composition parameters in the group of Polish pupils and students.

The study was conducted by the body composition analysis using the biological impedance method applying TANITA analyzer and diagnostic survey method using standardized direct interview with selected elements of the Sarzynska test. The research was carried out in various regions of Poland on a group of 1,000 pupils and students, using a targeted sample selection in the following subgroups: 250 middle school pupils, 250 high school students, 250 students living in a family home and 250 students living in an academic home.

Significantly the worst nutritional habits according to the Sarzynska test are shown by students living in academic home. As many as 21.6 percent of them eat very badly, while only 10.4 percent of students living in a family home eat very badly. This may indicate a lack of conditions, skills and time to prepare healthy meals, but also the lack of parental control in relation to what their child eats. The middle school pupils eat the healthiest meals (64.4 percent). It can be seen the regularity that the older the child is, the smaller the percentage of people in the healthy group.

A research limitation was the little sample size of the study (1,000 person) and participants might have felt uncomfortable during research.

People planning class schedules should also plan breaks for a full-value meal. It is necessary to organize affordable courses that would teach simple and fast food preparation that does not require a lot of equipment and little popular ingredients. It would also be necessary to draw parents’ attention to excessive care and the fact that not allowing children to “experiment” in the kitchen may arouse in them the reluctance and fear of cooking.

Among students, one should conduct universal education regarding a healthy lifestyle, which should focus on the subject of proper nutrition and physical activity, because there are no systemic solutions that would include adults. In order to improve nutritional habits, social rooms in academic homes should be adjusted so that students have the conditions to prepare nutritious meals, as well as provide access to canteens, where students would receive a reasonable meal at a reasonable price. The qualifications of the staff working there should also be improved.

The present study adds to the existing body of literature nutritional habits and body composition parameters in the group of Polish pupils and students. The results are the foundation for providing recommendations to policy makers, universitets, schools, food organizations and parents.

In the absence of well-developed financial markets, Informal Savings and Loans Associations (ISLAs) provide rural households with an alternative consumption coping mechanisms when confronted by transitory and seasonal food insecurity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the household food consumption coping strategies and gendered importance of ISLAs in improving household food security in rural Zimbabwe.

This study uses household panel data on rural livelihoods from the 2019 and 2020 household surveys conducted by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC). Employing propensity score matching approach to cater for the self-selection bias associated with household ISLA membership, the study estimates average treatment effect of household ISLA membership on food security and gendered importance of the propensity of the household to engage in consumption coping strategies.

Results shows that the ISLA membership increases household food security and reduces the household propensity to apply non-ISLA consumption coping mechanisms. Female-headed households with ISLA members are more able to increase food security as well as reduce reliance on non-ISLA consumption coping mechanisms than their male counterparts with ISLA members.

Use of household dietary diversity score and food consumption score as two proxies to measure household food security.

This study contributes to the literature on food consumption coping strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa using recent household panel data.

The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of a diet added with taro (Colocasia esculenta) flour on the body composition of rats.

Weanling male rats were divided into Control (n = 11) and experimental groups (Taro, n = 12); experimental rats were fed on taro for 90 days. Food intake, body mass and length were evaluated on a weekly basis. Body composition was assessed through dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and intra abdominal fat mass was measured at the end of 90 days.

Taro group recorded protein intake (55.5 ± 14.1 vs 43.8 ± 12.8 kcal, P < 0.009), body mass (between 40 and 90 days, P < 0.05), fat mass (147.3 ± 7.7 vs 99 ± 6.1 g, P < 0.001), lean mass (282.8 ± 4 vs 253.5 ± 7 g, P < 0.001), trunk fat mass (97.1 ± 7.7 vs 71.5 ± 4.1 g, P < 0.010), as well as intra-abdominal (31.3 ± 1.9 vs 21.1 ± 1.7 g, P < 0.001), epididymal (9.2 ± 0.8 vs 4.7 ± 0.5 g, P < 0.001) and retroperitoneal (14.2 ± 0.9 vs 8.8 ± 1.2 g, P < 0.002) fat mass higher than that of the Control group.

Taro flour would show anabolic effects on body compartments of rats. The extrapolation of these findings herein recorded for rats to humans requires caution; however, it is necessary conducting further studies to investigate potentials anabolic effects of taro (Colocacia esculenta) flour on the body composition of physical training models.

This study aims to investigate whether health insurers are transforming from pure payers into ecosystem-based health service companies. The authors discuss the findings’ impact on health insurers’ business model approach and their sources of competitive advantage.

The authors conducted a multiple case study of 25 incumbent and rising health insurers from the USA, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The selection of firms was based on databases from Forbes, S&P Global Market Intelligence and Crunchbase. By performing a review of financial reports, app descriptions, corporate websites and media coverage, the authors analyzed health insurers’ digital service offerings and underlying strategic approaches for providing those services.

This study demonstrates that major health insurers are transforming into ecosystem-based health service companies. They expand the traditional insurance value chain by offering value-adding health services along the patient journey. The analysis results are summarized in a table displaying 18 digital service categories along core patient journey phases with corresponding examples of health insurers and underlying strategic approaches.

The role of digital services and ecosystems has been explored for many industries. This study investigates this subject area with a focus on the health insurance sector, advancing a young field of research. The analysis gives insights into the latest digital service offerings and strategic approaches of an internationally diverse set of incumbents and rising ventures.