Visualization of Nutrient-Related Clinical Practice Guidelines in Childhood

Obesity and diabetes rates have been rising to epidemic levels during the last decade, especially among young populations. Recommendations for clinicians and primary healthcare providers concerning the improvement of childhood nutrition and the healthcare of childhood nutrition-related diseases are of major interest. Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) of the most updated evidence-based recommendations are useful tools that help clinicians in their practice. However, a gap has been observed between the suggested CPGs and their implementation in the context of everyday clinical practice. This could be merely attributed to the text format that is usually presented. In this review article, all the CPGs about the best dietary advice regarding energy and macronutrient intake in childhood and the most common chronic nutrition-related childhood diseases, i.e., obesity, dyslipidemia, and diabetes mellitus type 1 and 2, are summarized and visualized in an algorithmic format and practical examples are given. This could help healthcare providers to achieve a higher adoption rate of CPGs in clinical practice, thus, resulting in better management of children’s health and improved clinical outcomes

Repeatability of food frequency assessment tools in relation to the number of items and response categories included

Background: Accuracy of a measurement is a cornerstone in research in order to make robust conclusions about the research hypothesis. Objective: To examine whether the number of items (questions) and the number of responses of consumption included in nutritional assessment tools influence their repeatability. Methods: During 2009, 400 participants (250 from Greece, 37±13 yrs, 34% males and 150 participants from Spain, 39±17 yrs, 41% males) completed a diet index with 11-items and binary (yes/no) responses, a diet-index with 11-items and 6-scale responses, a 36-item and a 76-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) with 6-scale responses. Participants completed these tools, twice, within 15-days period. Spearman-Brown (rsb), Kendall’s tau coefficients and the Bland-Altman method were applied to answer the research hypothesis. Results: The highest repeatability coefficient was observed for the 11-items with binary responses index (rsb=0.948, p<0.001), followed by the 11-items with 6-scale responses index (rsb=0.943, p<0.001), the 36-item (rsb=0.936, p<0.001) and the 76-item FFQs (rsb=0.878, p<0.001). Statistical comparisons revealed no significant differences between repeatability coefficients of the first three tools (p>0.23); whereas the aforementioned tools had significantly higher repeatability coefficients as compared with the 76-item FFQ (p=0.002). Sub-group analyses by gender, education, smoking and clinical status, confirmed the aforementioned results. Conclusion: Repeatability has been revealed for all food frequency assessment tools used, irrespective of the number of items or the number of responses included

Dietary and other lifestyle characteristics of Cypriot school children: results from the nationwide CYKIDS study

Dietary and lifestyle behaviors at young ages have been associated with the development of various chronic diseases. Schools are regarded as an excellent setting for lifestyle modification; there is a lack, however, of published dietary data in Cypriot school children. Thus, the objective of this work was to describe lifestyle characteristics of a representative segment of Cypriot school children and provide implications for school health education. Methods. The CYKIDS (Cyprus Kids Study) is a national, cross-sectional study conducted among 1140 school children (10.7 0.98 years). Sampling was stratified and multistage in 24 primary schools of Cyprus. Dietary assessment was based on a 154-item semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire and three supplementary questionnaires, assessing dietary patterns and behaviors. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was evaluated by the KIDMED index (Mediterranean Diet Quality Index for children and adolescents). Physical activity was assessed by a 32-item, semi-quantitative questionnaire. Results. Analysis revealed that 6.7% of the children were classified as high adherers, whereas 37% as low adherers to the Mediterranean diet. About 20% of boys and 25% of girls reported "not having breakfast on most days of the week", while more than 80% of the children reported having meals with the family at least 5 times/week. Some food-related behaviors, such as intake of breakfast, were associated with socio-demographic factors, mostly with gender and the geomorphological characteristics of the living milieu. With respect to physical activity, boys reported higher levels compared to girls, however, one fourth of children did not report any kind of physical activity. Conclusion. A large percentage of Cypriot school children have a diet of low quality and inadequate physical activity. Public health policy makers should urgently focus their attention to primary school children and design school health education programs that target the areas that need attention in order to reduce the future burden of metabolic disorders and chronic diseases

New texts: Greek comic papyri 1973-2010

The year 1973 saw the publication of the first comprehensive collection of comic papyri, Colin Austin's Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris Reperta (CGFP). This paper offers an overview of all the fragments of Greek comedy written on papyri that have since been published. Part I introduces the material and illustrates some ways in which these new papyri have enriched our understanding of ancient comedy. The synoptic chart that comprises Part II presents the new papyri one by one.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Review of: A. Hurst, Dans les marges de Ménandre, Geneva 2015

Review of a collection of papers by André Hurst on the Athenian comic poet Menander.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Slave networks in Menander

The paper explores whether the slave characters in the plays of the Athenian comic poet Menander are represented as trying to form social networks of support for each other and resistance against their masters.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Relationships among slaves in Menander

The chapter argues for the necessity of examining ancient evidence on Greek and Roman slavery in ways which fully acknowledge that the lives of enslaved people, although powerfully conditioned by their slavery, were not reducible to it. The chapter focuses specifically on the plays of the Athenian comic poet Menander, and examines whether they portray slaves as assuming identities and roles which are not directly connected to their capacity as slaves to their masters. It also investigates the degree to which such portrayals can be used by historians in order to imagine and reconstruct possibilities regarding the experience of slavery of real slaves in Menander's time.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Menander’s 'Epitrepontes' and the Festival of the Tauropolia

The paper examines the surviving references to the setting of the rapes in New Comedy. It argues that the fact that rapes are commonly set in the course of nocturnal festival activities should not be seen merely as a convenient plot device. By using Menander's Epitrepontes as a case study, the paper suggests that there is a close relationship between the character of the festivals where rapes are set and a major theme in the plays themselves: namely, the maturation of the young protagonists and their transition into adulthood. The paper also offers a reassessment of the evidence we have for the Tauropolia, the Attic festival where the rape is set in the Epitrepontes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Recognition tokens

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Freed(wo)men

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