1,721,042 research outputs found
Does food portion size differ by level of household income? A cross-sectional study using the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey 2008–11
No full textBackground: in developed countries, disadvantaged groups have higher prevalence of obesity and its associated chronic diseases than do high income groups. This study aimed to investigate the association between the level of household income and food portion size for the top 20 most frequently consumed foods by adolescents and adults.Methods: data for this study came from the UK National Diet and Nutritional Survey (2008–11). Using a 4 day estimated food record, we calculated food portion size for 567 adolescents (11–18 years) and 992 adults (19–65 years). For each participant, average portion size for each food was calculated by dividing the total weight of the food by the frequency of consumption; then the average food portion size was calculated for each food for the whole sample. This method avoided portion sizes being skewed because of individuals who frequently consumed small or large portions. Levels of income were classified by household income per year: low (?£24?999), middle (£25?000–49?999), and high (?£50?000). Associations with food portion size were tested with multivariable regression models adjusting for sex and age (significance at p?0·01).Findings: 205, 226, and 136 adolescents and 395, 379, and 218 adults were classified as having low, middle, and high household incomes, respectively. Adolescents from low income households consumed smaller portions of “tap water” than did those in high income households (by 52 mL, 99% CI 7–97; p<0·0001). Adolescents from middle income households consumed larger food portion sizes of “carbonated soft drinks” than did those from high income households (40 mL, 2–81; p=0·01). Adults in low income households consumed larger food portion sizes of “cheese”, “mashed potato”, and “savoury sauces, pickles” (by 9 g [2–15], 25 g [2–15], and 12 g [7–43], respectively; p<0·0001), and drank smaller portions of “tap water” (34 mL [3–71], p=0·01) than did those from high income households. No significant differences were seen in food portion sizes between adults in middle and high income households.Interpretation: portion sizes of only a few foods differed by household income; nonetheless, these foods might contribute to inequalities in healthy dietary intake in both adults and adolescents. More attention should be given to both food and drink portion sizes when planning public health nutrition interventions and policy programmes aimed at closing the socioeconomic gap in obesity and chronic disease morbidity and mortalit
Formative evaluation of the usability and acceptability of myfood24 among adolescents: a UK online dietary assessments tool
Full text linkBackground: Myfood24 is a new online 24 h dietary assessment tool developed for use among the UK population. Limited information is available on the usability and acceptability of such tools. Hence this study aims to determine the usability and acceptability of myfood24 among British adolescents (11-18y) before and after making the improvements. Methods: A total of 84 adolescents were involved in two stages. In stage-I (beta-version of myfood24), 14 adolescents were recruited, 7 of whom (group-1) were asked to enter standardized tasks in a testing room with screen capture software. The remaining 7-adolescents (group-2) were asked to report their previous food intake using myfood24 at home. All participants then completed a usability and acceptability questionnaire. Stage-II was carried out after making amendments to the live-version of myfood24 in which 70 adolescents were asked to enter their food intake for two days and then complete the same questionnaire. Thematic analysis was conducted of observer comments and open-ended questions. Results: Navigation, presentation errors and failure to find functions were the main usability issues identified in the beta-version. Significant improvements were found in the usability and acceptability of most functions after implementing certain features like a spell checker, auto-fill option, and adding ‘mouse hover’ to help with the use of some functions. Adolescents’ perceptions of searching food items, selecting food portion sizes and making a list function were significantly improved in the live-version. The mean completion time of myfood24 reduced from 31 (SD = 6) minutes in the beta-version to 16 (SD = 5) minutes in the live-version. The mean system usability score (SUS) of myfood24 improved from 66/100 (95 % CI 60, 73) in the beta-version to 74/100 (95 % CI 71, 77) in the live-version, which is considered as ‘good’. Of the adolescents in stage-II, 41 % preferred using myfood24 to the interviewer-administered 24 h recall because myfood24 was quicker, easier to use and provided the adolescents with privacy when reporting dietary intake. Conclusion: Considering adolescents’ feedback has helped in improving the usability and acceptability of the final-version of myfood24. myfood24 appears to support adolescents’ need in reporting their dietary intake, which may potentially improve the overall quality of adolescents’ self-reported dietary information
Associations of maternal iron intake and hemoglobin in pregnancy with offspring vascular phenotypes and adiposity at age 10: findings from the avon longitudinal study of parents and children.
Full text linkIron deficiency is common during pregnancy. Experimental animal studies suggest that it increases cardiovascular risk in the offspring
Agreement between an online dietary assessment tool (myfood24) and an interviewer-administered 24-h dietary recall in British adolescents aged 11–18 years
Full text linkmyfood24 Is an online 24-h dietary assessment tool developed for use among British adolescents and adults. Limited information is available regarding the validity of using new technology in assessing nutritional intake among adolescents. Thus, a relative validation of myfood24 against a face-to-face interviewer-administered 24-h multiple-pass recall (MPR) was conducted among seventy-five British adolescents aged 11–18 years. Participants were asked to complete myfood24 and an interviewer-administered MPR on the same day for 2 non-consecutive days at school. Total energy intake (EI) and nutrients recorded by the two methods were compared using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), Bland–Altman plots (using between and within-individual information) and weighted κ to assess the agreement. Energy, macronutrients and other reported nutrients from myfood24 demonstrated strong agreement with the interview MPR data, and ICC ranged from 0·46 for Na to 0·88 for EI. There was no significant bias between the two methods for EI, macronutrients and most reported nutrients. The mean difference between myfood24 and the interviewer-administered MPR for EI was −230 kJ (−55 kcal) (95 % CI −490, 30 kJ (−117, 7 kcal); P=0·4) with limits of agreement ranging between 39 % (3336 kJ (−797 kcal)) lower and 34 % (2874 kJ (687 kcal)) higher than the interviewer-administered MPR. There was good agreement in terms of classifying adolescents into tertiles of EI (κ w =0·64). The agreement between day 1 and day 2 was as good for myfood24 as for the interviewer-administered MPR, reflecting the reliability of myfood24. myfood24 Has the potential to collect dietary data of comparable quality with that of an interviewer-administered MPR
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Use of information and communication technology to improve dietary assessment and tackle obesity
No full textBackground: in 2010, 30 million British adults used the internet daily or nearly every day. 27% of UK adults and 47% of teenagers owned a smartphone in 2011. Information and communication technology (ICT) is a promising new route to deliver public health interventions. It allows a wide target population to be reached and offers cost-effectiveness, convenience, and familiarity of use. There is potential for ICT to be used in dietary assessment to monitor the effectiveness of interventions and assess exposures in aetiological investigations in epidemiology. Paper-based approaches to dietary data are time-consuming, need trained interviewers, and are costly to collect and code. Our hypothesis is that specifically tailored ICT methods can be successfully implemented to assess dietary exposures and aid weight loss and maintenance.Methods: we have developed a smartphone application “My meal mate” (MMM) that allows participants to self-monitor their calorie intake and physical activity. It has been validated against a 24-h recall (based on the US Department of Agriculture multiple pass telephone recall procedure) in a sample of 50 adults (University of Leeds, UK, staff and students) and has been piloted in 128 overweight adults versus an online or a paper diary in a randomised controlled trial for 6 months to assess adherence and acceptability. Trial participants were recruited from large employers in Leeds, including Leeds City Council, Leeds Metropolitan University, University of Leeds, West Yorkshire Police, Asda, and Morrisons. As an extension of this work, we are also developing a UK online 24-h dietary recall. This recall will be developed on the basis of the automated multiple pass method, with focus groups' input after trying online tools developed in the USA and France. It will be validated against repeated interviewer-administered dietary recalls, and both will be compared with independent nutrient biomarkers. It will be piloted in subgroups of two epidemiological cohorts: the UK Women's Cohort Study, their children, and their grandchildren; and the UK Clinical Biobank.Findings: in the validation study (72% female, 82% white ethnic origin, mean age 35 years [SD 9], mean body-mass index [BMI] 24 kg/m2 [SD 4]), energy recorded on MMM correlated well with the 24-h dietary recalls (day 1 recall: r=0·77, 95% CI 0·62–0·86; day 2 recall: 0·85, 0·75–0·91), and had a small mean difference (MMM recall, day 1: ?16 kcals per day, 95% CI ?132 to 100; day 2: ?105 kcals per day, ?204 to ?7). It took an average 7 (95% CI 6–9) min to enter a meal and an average 22 (95% CI 19–26) min to input a day's intake. In the MMM pilot trial (71% female, 89% white ethnic origin, mean age 42 years [SD 9], mean BMI 34 kg/m2 [5]), retention rate was 93% (95% CI 81–99) in the smartphone group, 45% (30–61) in the website group, and 47% (31–62) in the paper diary group at 6 months. Adherence was measured as number of days recorded with 500–5000 kcals (either on app, diary, or online) by all participants. Adherence to dietary self-monitoring was higher in the smartphone group than in the other two groups (p<0·0001). MMM was also rated higher in terms of convenience and comfort of use in social settings. However, the pilot was not powered to detect difference in weight change between the groups.Interpretation: ICT provides a step-change for improvement of dietary assessment and monitoring in population health research. MMM has shown potential as a feasible and acceptable dietary assessment and weight management aid. We now plan to undertake a full randomised trial of this approach to assess weight loss and maintenance. The UK online 24-h dietary recall should be ready for dissemination and use by 2015, free of charge to other UK researcher
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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