Nutrition and Dietetics

Adolescent fiber consumption is associated with visceral fat and inflammatory markers

by Norman Pollock

Parikh S,* Pollock NK,* Gutin B, Zhu H, Dong Y. Adolescent fiber consumption is associated
with visceral fat and inflammatory markers. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
2012, In Press. (*Co-First Authorship)

Filingeri, D., Bianco, A., Jemni, M., Mammina, C., Paoli, A., Palma, A., Tabacchi, G., (2011) A web-based surveillance system for nutritional and physical activity in adolescence - The ASSO Project. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. 51 (Suppl.1 to No. 3): 57.

by Davide Filingeri

Children in EBA Unetice culture

by Dalia Pokutta

Info. Forging Identities Conference June Århus 2012

Feeding in the Workhouse: The Institution and the Ideological Functions of Food, c.1834-70

by Ian Miller

Journal of British Studies, 2013

How adequate was the mid-Victorian workhouse diet? According to an article published recently in the British Medical... more How adequate was the mid-Victorian workhouse diet? According to an article published recently in the British Medical Journal which garnered international media attention, it was indeed adequate. Basing its argument on modern nutritional analysis of dietary tables, it concludes that the house diet fulfilled the basic nutritional needs of inmates. The article’s aim was to demolish the “medical myth” of workhouse dietary regimes that it believes to have been created by contemporaries - in particular Charles Dickens. The paucity of Oliver Twist’s diet was fictitious, it argues, because it did not correspond with dietary tables outlined in official sources. Dickens’ infamous scene where Oliver becomes so overwhelmed with hunger that he asks for more food is construed as an exaggerated rendering of the quantities of food allocated to paupers in mid-Victorian workhouses. 


Within this article, I argue contrarily that efforts to impose modern nutritional techniques onto past configurations can produce misleading results, and, in turn, generate simplistic historical interpretations. Certainly, in this instance, the usage of nutritional analysis has allowed imprecise narratives of mid-Victorian workhouse practices to become widely popularised. Within such accounts, the historical, and cultural, construction of dietary regimes remains unaccounted for. Although nutritional analysis of past dietary trends indeed serve a useful function, when used alone it often resoundingly fails to encompass the meaningful, immediate and important meanings that surrounded the issue of workhouse feeding, and which permeated the heated debates sparked by the presence of the New Poor Law. This is problematic, as these debates cannot be so easily disconnected from the realities of institutional feeding practices. On the contrary, they informed and shaped dietary provisions in multifaceted ways. The cultural categories historically surrounding food demand thorough attention, and must be reconciled with modern scientific approaches. Nutritional analysis needs to be synthesised with rigorous historical scrutiny if we are to formulate more precise historiographical understandings, and, in this instance, if the boundaries between workhouse realities and mythologies are to be rendered less obscure.

You are what you eat: within-subject increases in fruit and vegetable consumption confer beneficial skin-color changes

by Ross Whitehead

Smits, E. & J. van der Plicht, 2009, Mesolithic and Neolithic human remains in the Netherlands: physical anthropological and stable isotope investigations, Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries 1.1, 55-85.

by Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries

This article presents an overview of the interdisciplinary study of skeletal remains from Late Mesolithic and Middle... more This article presents an overview of the interdisciplinary study of skeletal remains from Late Mesolithic and Middle Neolithic sites in the Lower Rhine Basin. The combination of archaeological, physical anthropological and chemical analysis has led to a better understanding of the treatment of the dead, demographic parameters and diet of the populations during the transition from forager to farmer in this area. Burial ritual was variable during this whole period, with an above-ground treatment of corpses
alongside the burial of deceased. The physical anthropological study has revealed that the sites were inhabited by family groups. Stable isotope analyses have indicated that immigrants were sometimes present and that diet varied per population. Intersite variation in diet is explained by the exploitation of the
local habitat. Intrasite variability in diet can be influenced by cultural and social factors as attested by the burial traditions and the isotope study of provenance. It is posited here that the Neolithisation process was not as unambiguous as in some other parts of Europe, but diverse with small-scale variations at the site level

The Effectiveness of Interventions to Change Six Health Behaviours: a Review of Reviews

by Fiona Harris

Non-Invasive Monitoring of Chewing and Swallowing for Objective Quantification of Ingestive Behavior

by Edward Sazonov

Edward Sazonov, Stephanie Schuckers, Paulo Lopez-Meyer, Oleksandr Makeyev, Nadezhda Sazonova, Ed Melanson, and Michael Neuman, Physiol. Meas. 29 (2008) 525-541.

A methodology of studying of ingestive behavior by non-invasive monitoring of swallowing (deglutition) and chewing... more A methodology of studying of ingestive behavior by non-invasive monitoring of swallowing (deglutition) and chewing (mastication) has been developed. The target application for the developed methodology is to study the behavioral patterns of food consumption and producing volumetric and weight estimates of energy intake. Monitoring is non-invasive based on detecting swallowing by a sound sensor located over laryngopharynx or by a bone conduction microphone and detecting chewing through a below-the-ear strain sensor. Proposed sensors may be implemented in a wearable monitoring device, thus enabling monitoring of ingestive behavior in free living individuals. In this paper, the goals in the development of this methodology are two-fold. First, a system comprised of sensors, related hardware and software for multi-modal data capture is designed for data collection in a controlled environment. Second, a protocol is developed for manual scoring of chewing and swallowing for use as a gold standard. The multi-modal data capture was tested by measuring chewing and swallowing in twenty one volunteers during periods of food intake and quiet sitting (no food intake). Video footage and sensor signals were manually scored by trained raters. Inter-rater reliability study for three raters conducted on the sample set of 5 subjects resulted in high average intra-class correlation coefficients of 0.996 for bites, 0.988 for chews, and 0.98 for swallows. The collected sensor signals and the resulting manual scores will be used in future research as a gold standard for further assessment of sensor design, development of automatic pattern recognition routines, and study of the relationship between swallowing/chewing and ingestive behavior.

Understanding successful behaviour change: the role of intentions, attitudes to the target and motivations and the example of diet

by Jane Ogden

Hominid Lifestyle and Diet Reconsidered: Paleo-Environmental and Comparative Data - Mode de vie des hominidés et régime alimentaire.

by Pierre-François Puech

co-authored by Verhaegen Marc and Puech Pierre-François

SEM-analyses of teeth micro wear of modern and fossil animals have yielded insights into the evolution of tooth use... more SEM-analyses of teeth micro wear of modern and fossil animals have yielded insights into the evolution of tooth use and diet because qualitative and statistical differences in features of micro wear are distinguishable. Microwear studies suggest that the australopithecines, more than Western lowland gorillas, regularly fed on aquatic herbaceous vegetation (AHV). Homo fossils, on the other hand, as suggested by the paleoenvironmental data, are more frequently discovered near lakes, seas and rivers where molluscs were abundant. Shellfish could provide a dietary supplement for their frugivorous diet. This is how early hominines might have learned to use stones to crack bivalves. This subsequently could have led to stone tool use for other purposes.

Credibility Engineering in the Food Industry. Linking science, regulation and marketing in a corporate context.

by Bart Penders

Penders, B. & Nelis, A.P. (2011). Science in Context 29 (4): 487-515. [DOI: 10.1017/S0269889711000202]

We expand upon the notion of the “credibility cycle” through a study of credibility engineering by the food industry.... more We expand upon the notion of the “credibility cycle” through a study of credibility engineering by the food industry. Research and development (R&D) as well as marketing contribute to
the credibility of the food company Unilever and its claims. Innovation encompasses the development, marketing, and sales of products. These are directed towards three distinct audiences: scientific peers, regulators, and consumers. R&D uses scientific articles to create credit for itself amongst peers and regulators. These articles are used to support health claims on products. However, R&D, regulation, and marketing are not separate realms. A single strategy of credibility engineering connects health claims to a specific public through linking that public to a health issue and a food product.

Empty Pleasures The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda

by David Schleifer

Review of Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda. By Carolyn de la Peña. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Pp. x+279. $32.50.

“Life without saccharin would be dreadful.” “Life without saccharin would be dreadful.”

Qualitative research in nutrition and dietetics: getting started

by Victoria Tischler

Qualitative research is well placed to answer complex questions about food-related behaviour because it investigates... more Qualitative research is well placed to answer complex questions about food-related behaviour because it investigates how and why individuals act in certain ways. The field of qualitative health research is undoubtedly gaining momentum and, increasingly, there is a recognition that it should be a vital part of the decision-making processes that direct the development of health policy and practice. Much of the guidance available, however, is difficult to navigate for those new to ‘qualitative research’, and there is little discussion of qualitative research issues specifically in relation to nutrition and dietetics. This review, the first in a series, outlines the field of qualitative enquiry, its potential usefulness in nutrition and dietetics, and how to embark upon this type of research. Furthermore, it describes a process to guide high-quality qualitative research in this area that proceeds from the research question(s) and considers the key philosophical assumptions about ontology, epistemology and methodology that underpin the overall design of a study. Other reviews in this series provide an overview of the principal techniques of data collection and sampling, data analysis, and quality assessment of qualitative work, and provide some practical advice relevant to nutrition and dietetics, along with glossaries of key terms.

Greater fructose consumption is associated with cardiometabolic risk factors and visceral adiposity in adolescents

by Norman Pollock

Pollock NK, Bundy V, Kanto W, Davis CL, Bernard PJ, Zhu H, Gutin B, Dong Y. (2012) Greater fructose consumption is associated with cardiometabolic risk factors and visceral adiposity in adolescents. The Journal of Nutrition. 2012;142(2):251-257.

Natural Medicine for Common Ailments

by Poppy Valentine

This is a collection of non-synthetic health tips for common illnesses. This is a collection of non-synthetic health tips for common illnesses.

Asimetría bilateral del desgaste oclusal en dentición permanente y su relación con la paleodieta en una sociedad prehispánica de tradición cultural Sonso en …

by Carlos David Rodriguez Florez

Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy Feeding in Nursing Homes

by Bernie Carter

Dairy proteins and the response to pneumovax in senior citizens: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study

by Laura K. Fischer

Oily fish consumption in young adults: current intakes, knowledge, barriers and motivations

by Katie Adolphus

Background:  Long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) play an important role in the prevention of... more Background:  Long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) play an important role in the prevention of many health problems, including cardiovascular disease, mental health issues such as depression and neurological malformations during foetal growth. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition recommends that adults should consume at least two portions of fish per week, one of which (approximately 140 g) should be oily, although there be safe upper levels for intake (SACN, 2004). Despite dietary recommendations, recent surveys suggest only one in four adults eat oily fish regularly and that the average intake in consumers is only 45g week-1, approximately one-third of a portion (Bates et al., 2010). This study aimed to improve understanding of the knowledge, motivations, barriers and information access regarding oily fish in young adults in whom dietary habits may still be developing to inform methods for increasing consumption.

Methods:  A self-administered cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from students at the University of Bristol [n = 112, mean (SD) age 20.9 (2.6) years, 75% female]. The survey was developed from two previously validated questionnaires to assess current fish intake, knowledge, motivations, barriers and information access in relation to oily fish consumption . The survey was delivered via the University of Bristol Online Survey system. A chi-squared test was used to test for differences between groups and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to identify associations. Alpha was set at <0.05.

Results:  Only 36.6% of participants met the dietary recommendation of eating ≥1 portion of oily fish per week. Where oily fish was eaten, the average portion size was below recommended levels at 106 g. A large proportion of participants lacked specific awareness of the intake recommendations (48.8%) and safe upper levels for women (68.8%) and men (70.5%). Neither the frequency of consumption of oily fish, nor the meeting the dietary recommendation significantly differed by overall knowledge level (χ2 = 18.166, d.f. = 15, P = 0.254; χ2 = 1.913, d.f. = 3, P = 0.591, respectively). The main motivational drivers for fish consumption were liking the taste (77.3%) and knowing the associated health benefits (69.1%). The perceived high price (36.8%), unpleasant smell (38.9%) and dislike of taste (30.5%) were the main reported barriers to consuming oily fish. Other key barriers included a dislike of bones (21.5%) and difficulty with preparation and cooking (19.6%). A dislike of the taste was strongly negatively associated with consumption behaviour (r = -0.372, P = 0.004). Wholly or partially following a vegetarian diet was negatively associated with fish consumption and in turn n-3 PUFA intake (r = -0.286, P = 0.31). The types of information participants said they would most like to receive on fish were recipes (38.4%), details of health benefits (30.4%) and tips on cooking and preparation methods (29.5%). Online routes such as e-mail prompts were the preferred channel of communication for this information.

Discussion:  Lack of awareness of the dietary recommendations and health benefits of fish has also been noted in previous studies (Burger, 2008). Previous studies have also reported similar barriers to oily fish consumption (Jones & Cornu, 1994). Together, these findings indicate a need to increase understanding of specific key issues around oily fish intake in young people. They suggest a value of health promotion strategies including electronic routes, that address cost, taste, smell, convenience and preparation and cooking issues including recipes and vegetarian sources of n-3 PUFA alternatives.

Conclusions:  Oily fish consumption in young people may be facilitated by using electronic methods to target barriers to consumption, gaps in knowledge and awareness around fish consumption.

Goal desires moderate intention-behaviour relations.

by Andrew Prestwich

British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 49-71.

Previous research has largely ignored the potential impact of goal-related constructs on behaviour. Three studies... more Previous research has largely ignored the potential impact of goal-related constructs on behaviour. Three studies addressed this issue by examining the direct and moderated effects of goal desires on behaviour. All of the studies required participants to complete baseline measures and then a follow-up indicator of behaviour. In the first study (N=119) that focused on fruit intake, and studies 2 (N=123) and 3 (N=96) concerned with drinking alcohol, goal desires interacted with behavioural intentions to affect behaviour. Specifically, behavioural intentions were more reliably related to behaviour when goal desires were strong. The results of the third study suggested that in order to obtain such interactive effects, the strength of the overarching goal must remain stable. The findings reveal that goals and behavioural intentions can operate simultaneously and jointly influence action, a view that contradicts postulations that the effects of goals are fully mediated by more proximal behavioural determinants.