Water-energy-food nexus and life cycle thinking: A new approach to environmental and nutritional assessment of potato chips

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has become a key concept to promote the cross-sectoral coordination toward sustainable development. In particular, understanding the interdependences of these pillars, as well as addressing a life cycle perspective, is essential when evaluating food production systems. This study explores the environmental impacts and nutritional quality of potato chips, addressing life cycle thinking and a WEF nexus approach. For this purpose, the combined application of life cycle assessment (LCA) and the Nutrient-Rich Food 9.3 (NRF9.3) index was considered to identify the main environmental hotspots and advanced opportunities. The results indicated a major contribution of the cultivation stage on water use, whereas the processing accounted for most of the impacts in energy-related indicators and eutrophication potentials. Improvement opportunities reside in the joint application of drip irrigation, allowing to achieve important water savings, as well as the use of natural gas or pellets instead of diesel, which constitute cleaner energy sources. On the other hand, a poor nutritional density of potato chips became evident from the quantification of the NRF9.3, which can be significantly improved if potatoes undergo a roasted process instead of fryingThis research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the KAIROS-BIOCIR project (PID2019-104925RB) (AEO/FEDER, UE)

Towards a sustainable agri-food system by an energetic and environmental efficiency assessment

Feeding the world’s population sustainably is a major challenge of our society and has been stated as one of the key priorities for development cooperation by the EU policy framework on food security. However, the current pattern of natural resources exploitation to meet humanity’s demand for food threatens long-term food security. Food systems represent around 30 % of final energy use, generating up to 30 % of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Given the expected increase of global population (9 billion people by 2050) and the amount of food losses and waste generated (a third of global food production), improving the efficiency of food systems along the supply chain is essential to ensure food security. This work combines life cycle assessment (LCA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the efficiency of Spanish agri-food system and propose improvement actions in order to reduce energy usage and GHG emissions. Results suggest that sweets and vegetable fats categories provide the largest nutritional energy to consumer per unit of embedded energy in its production. Around a 70 % average reduction target is estimated for the Spanish agri-food system to be efficient, with a similar reduction in related greenhouse gas emissions.The authors are grateful for the funding of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Ceres-Procom: Food production and consumption strategies for climate change mitigation (CTM2016-76176- C2-1-R) (AEI/FEDER, UE)

Looking for answers to food loss and waste management in Spain from a holistic nutritional and economic approach

The generation of food loss and waste (FLW) is a global problem for worldwide politics. About one-third of the food produced ends up in the rubbish before it is consumed. For this reason, it is essential to design and implement new strategies along the food supply chain (FSC) with the aim of reducing this FLW at each stage. However, not only mass quantification should be considered, but also economic and nutritional performance. The novelty of this study is the definition of a methodology based on the “distance to target” approach by means of multi-objective optimization to evaluate the economic and nutritional cost produced by this FLW. This methodology was applied to the Spanish food basket in 2015. The results revealed that 80% of the total FLW generated in economic and nutritional terms is concentrated in the agricultural production (53.3%) and consumption (26.3%) stages. In the first stages of the FSC, fruits (Dn eq.= 0.7), cereals (Dn eq.= 0.61), and vegetables (Dn eq.= 0.57) were the furthest from the distance target due to the great amount of FLW generated. Moreover, according to the normalized weighted distances obtained from the minimization of economic and nutritional cost, pulses (Dn eq. = 0.05–0.03) and eggs (Dn eq. = 0.02) were the more efficient food categories. The methodology described in this study proposes a single index to quantify the economic and nutritional cost of different food categories to facilitate the decision-making process. This index makes possible the definition of reduction strategies focused on specific food categories and depending on the FSC stage.This research was funded by Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness, grant number CERES-PROCON Project CTM2016-76176 (AEI/FEDER, UE) and KAIROS-BIOCIR Project PID2019-104925RB (AEO/FEDER, UE)

Validation of the Spanish Version of the ICECAP-O for Nursing Home Residents with Dementia

Background Measurement of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is important for a chronic disease, such as dementia, which impairs the quality of life of affected patients in addition to their length of life. This is important in the context of economic evaluations when interventions do not (only) affect HRQoL and these other factors also affect overall quality of life. Objective To validate the Spanish translation of the ICECAP-O's capability to measure Health-related quality of life in elderly with dementia who live in nursing homes. Method Cross-sectional study. For 217 residents living in 8 Spanish nursing homes, questionnaires were completed by nursing professionals serving as proxy respondents. We analyzed the internal consistency and other psychometric properties. We investigated the convergent validity of the ICECAP-O with other HRQoL instruments, the EQ-5D extended with a cognitive dimension (EQ-5D+C), the Alzheimer's Disease Related Quality of Life (ADRQL) measures, and the Barthel Index measure of activities of daily living (ADL). Results The ICECAP-O presents satisfactory internal consistency (alpha 0.820). The factorial analysis indicated a structure of five principal dimensions that explain 66.57% of the total variance. Convergent validity between the ICECAP-O, EQ-5D+C, ADRQL, and Barthel Index scores was moderate to good (with correlations of 0.62, 0.61, and 0.68, respectively), but differed between dimensions of the instruments. Discriminant validity was confirmed by finding differences in ICECAP-O scores between subgroups based on ADL scores (0.70 low, 0.59 medium, and 0.39 high level care), dementia severity (0.72 mild, 0.63 medium, and 0.50 severe), and ages (0.59 below 75 years and 0.84 above 75 years). Conclusions This study presented the first use of a Spanish version of the ICECAP-O. The results indicate that the ICECAP-O appears to be a reliable Health-related quality of life measurement instrument showing good convergent and discriminant validity for people with dementia

Análisis de la fuerza muscular de prensión en adolescentes

Los objetivos de este estudio son buscar la relación que existe entre el crecimiento y desarrollo y la fuerza muscular en adolescentes escolarizados, de ambos sexos, así como la evaluación de la fuerza muscular en función del sexo, edad, lateralidad y peso. Se trata de un estudio transversal que se compuso de un total de 468 adolescentes escolarizados (255 hombres; 213 mujeres) entre los 12 y los 19 años (14,82 ± 1,72 años) de Santander. Se utilizó un dinamómetro isométrico manual para medir la fuerza del tren superior. Los varones han sido significativamente más fuertes que las mujeres para todas las edades salvo a los 12 años (p<0,05 a los 13 años y p<0,001 en el resto).La fuerza muscular aumentó significativamente a través de la edad en los hombres. Los zurdos fueron más fuertes que los diestros. La fuerza muscular siguió una tendencia de aumento a medida que se incrementaba de peso. Los hombres poseyeron mayor fuerza muscular estática que las mujeres. Ésta aumentó significativamente a medida que lo hizo la edad. Los hombres zurdos son más fuertes que los diestros con la mano dominante y con la no dominante. La fuerza muscular estática aumentó a medida que lo hizo el peso.Máster en Condicionantes Genéticos, Nutricionales y Ambientales del Crecimiento y el Desarroll

Prevalence and determinants of excess weight in children and adolescents with intellectual disability in Cantabria

RESUMEN: La epidemia mundial de obesidad infantil es uno de los principales problemas de salud pública. Algunos estudios apuntan a que un colectivo de especial riesgo son los niños con discapacidad intelectual (DI). El objetivo del estudio es determinar la prevalencia de exceso de peso (EP) en niños y adolescentes con DI de Cantabria. Para ello, se ha diseñado un estudio transversal, con un tamaño muestral de n = 220 sujetos con DI, de entre 3 y 25 años (65 % hombres) estudiantes de siete Centros de Educación Especial de Cantabria. La variable dependiente principal es el estado nutricional, determinado por el índice de masa corporal, y clasificado según los puntos de corte de Cole et al. Se estimaron la prevalencia de EP, el riesgo de EP respecto a los sujetos sin DI, y el riesgo de EP en función de diferentes variables como el sexo, la edad, el grado de discapacidad, los hábitos de vida o los factores parentales.ABSTRACT: The global epidemic of pediatric obesity is one of the main problems of public health. Some studies suggest that one group particularly at risk of obesity are children with intellectual disability (ID). The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of excess weight (EW) in children and adolescents with ID in Cantabria. For that purpose, a cross-sectional study is designed. It was selected a sample of n = 220 subjects with ID between 3 and 25 years old (65 % male). All of them were students of seven Special Education Schools of Cantabria. The main dependent variable is the nutritional status, determined by the body mass index, and classified according to the cut-off points of Cole et al. Prevalence of EW, risk of EW in relation to subjects without ID, and the risk of EW in relation to several variables such as sex, age, degree of disability, lifestyle or parental factors

Physiological regulation of body weight : the role of ghrelin

En el contexto del gran aumento de la prevalencia de obesidad en el mundo es fundamental entender como se regula el peso corporal. El ser humano es un organismo capaz de absorber energía en forma de alimentos, almacenarla, y por último, capaz de utilizarla cuando lo requiere. El almacenamiento conlleva un aumento de peso, y la utilización, una disminución del mismo (ya sea a través de la actividad física, del metabolismo basal o del efecto termogénico de los alimentos). En términos generales, el individuo estándar mantiene su peso corporal dentro de un margen estrecho que sugiere una regulación homeostática a largo plazo. Existe también una regulación a corto plazo que condiciona la ingestión de comida de forma inmediata, pero que los estudios han demostrado que por si sola tan solo afecta al tamaño de las comidas, pero no influye directamente sobre el peso corporal. Únicamente cuando se sobrepasa la capacidad reguladora del balance energético se producirá obesidad o pérdidad de peso. En esta revisión se repasan algunas de las vías a través de las cuales nuestro organismo trata de equilibrar su peso. Se circunscribe después a los mediadores fisiológicos, en concreto a la ghrelina, hormona descubierta recientemente con grandes implicaciones en la regulación del peso, analizándose su estructura, distribución, acciones, regulación, y relación con desórdenes alimenticios.Grado en Enfermerí

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Has Impacted Food Loss and Waste: Lessons Learned and Future Challenges

The present paper aims to review and assess the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on food loss and waste (FLW), evaluating the environmental, social, nutritional, and economic repercussions, as well as the challenges addressed by the food sector and the recovery strategies. The main outcomes reveal that the major challenges reside in mobility restrictions, labor and products shortage along the supply chain, and the management of an important amount of household FLW. Measures such as secondary feeding strategies, alternative distribution channels, and e-commerce stand out in achieving a more sustainable and resilient food system

Discriminant Validity.

<p>Discriminant Validity.</p

Convergent Validity.

<p>Convergent Validity.</p