Demographic differences in usage and attitudes to milk

Declining milk consumption is a potential public health problem because milk provides nutrients that are not abundant in other foods. Identification of the factors that may influence milk consumption may lead to development of interventions to promote more healthful behaviours. Attitudes and beliefs about food appear to be strong predictors of dietary behaviour. The objective of this study was to survey a random sample of consumers in regard to their milk consumption and attitudes and beliefs about milk. Two telephone surveys were conducted one year apart. The questionnaire included attitude items that reflected the main themes of consumers\u27 interest in milk.The respondents\u27 attitudes were complex and were related to demographics and milk consumption. In general, people\u27s concerns about milk related to what was important in their lives; what threatened them physically and emotionally. Women held more positive attitudes, but they were concerned about the fat content of milk. Men were less aware of milk\u27s nutritional benefits and, as a result, were less appreciative of its value.The findings from this investigation provide an opportunity to develop appropriate public health initiatives to promote the consumption of high calcium foods and to address the barriers to drinking milk. Nutrition communications in collaboration with other health agencies and the milk industry could support these initiatives.<br /

New Zealanders\u27 attitudes to milk : implications for public health

Objective: To identify consumer attitudes and beliefs about (liquid) milk that may be barriers to consumption.Design: Two random-quota telephone surveys conducted in Auckland one year apart. Respondents were questioned about their usual milk intake and their attitudes to milk. The questionnaire included attitude items that reflected the main themes of consumer interest in milk.Setting: New Zealand.Subjects: Seven hundred and thirteen respondents in the baseline survey and a separate sample of 719 respondents in the follow-up survey.Results: At least one-third of the respondents consumed less than a glass (250ml) of milk a day. Non-consumption was highest in young women (15%). People\u27s concerns about milk related to what was important in their lives; what threatens them physically and emotionally. Women held more positive attitudes but they were concerned about the fat content of milk. Men were less aware of milk\u27s nutritional benefits and as a result were less appreciative of its value.Conclusions: There is an opportunity to develop public health initiatives to address the barriers to drinking milk. Industry&ndash;health alliances may be an effective means to provide positive nutrition messages about milk and to engage the support of health professionals.<br /

Dietary agrobiodiversity for improved nutrition and health outcomes within a transitioning indigenous Solomon Island food system

Indigenous food systems of Pacific Small Island Developing Countries contain vast biological and cultural diversity. However, a nutrition transition is underway, characterized by shifts away from traditional diets in favour of imported and modern foods, contributing to some of the highest rates of obesity and Diabetes Type 2 Mellitus in the world. Using a mixed method approach, this study aimed to assess dietary agrobiodiversity’s relationship with nutrition indicators related to diet quality and anthropometrics within the context of the rural and Indigenous food system of Baniata village, located in the Western Province of Solomon Islands (Melanesia). A secondary aim was to evaluate the contribution of agrobiodiversity from the local food system to diet quality. A comprehensive nutrition survey was administered to the women primarily responsible for cooking of randomly selected households (n = 30). Additionally, 14 participatory focus group discussions captured the historical narrative of food system transitions, were hosted over a period of seven days, and included men, women and youth. Dietary intakes of the participants were reported below the estimated average requirement (EAR) for several essential nutrients, including protein (53%), calcium (96.6%), vitamin B1 (86.6%), vitamin B2 (80%), vitamin A (80%), zinc (40%) and fibre (77%). Focus group participants built a timeline of key historical and climatic transitions perceived to be drivers of dietary shifts away from traditional foods and towards imported and processed foods. Participants identified 221 species and varieties of agrobiodiverse foods available for cultivation or wild collection. Based on 24 h diet recalls, 87 were found to be utilised. Participants who consumed foods of a wider diversity of species richness had a higher probability of achieving recommended nutrition intakes and a lower body fat percentage (r2 = 0.205; p = 0.012). Our results suggest a nutrition transition is underway, and strategies harnessing traditional knowledge of nutrient-dense, agrobiodiverse foods can help improve food and nutrition security

Nutrition risk: cultural aspects of assessment

Aim: To assess a nutrition risk screening tool amongst Māori and non-Māori of advanced age. Method: A cross sectional feasibility study was conducted in three North Island locations. One hundred and eight communityliving residents aged 75-85 years were assessed for nutrition risk using &apos;the validated questionnaire &apos;Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition&apos;, Version II (SCREENII) and level of physical activity using the &apos;Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly&apos; (PASE). Physical assessments included height and weight. Results: Fifty-two percent of participants were assessed to be at high nutrition risk (SCREENII score &lt;50; range 29-58; out of maximum score 64). Nutrition risk factors amongst Māori and non-Māori respectively differed for weight change in the previous six months (45.2% and 18.7%, p=0.005), skipping meals (54.8% and 13.3%, p&lt;0.001), fruit and vegetable intake (77.4% and 18.7%, p&lt;0.001) and the use of meal replacements (28.1% and 9.3%, p=0.013). Process evaluation showed that Māori took different meaning from the individual question items in SCREENII. Level of physical activity (PASE score) was higher for Māori, median (IQR): 125 (74) than non-Māori, 72 (74) (p&lt;0.001) especially for leisure-time and household related activity. BMI was higher for Māori median (IQR): 31.5 kg/m 2 (6.8) compared to non-Māori 24.7 kg/m 2 (5.4) (p&lt;0.001). Conclusions: The nutrition risk tool suggested that Māori were at high risk for malnutrition despite higher BMI and higher levels of activity. Several items of the screening tool were interpreted differently among Māori compared to non-Māori. Further development is needed to ensure accurate assessment

Nutrient dense, low-cost foods can improve the affordability and quality of the new zealand diet—a substitution modeling study

The high prevalence of non-communicable disease in New Zealand (NZ) is driven in part by unhealthy diet selections, with food costs contributing to an increased risk for vulnerable population groups. This study aimed to: (i) identify the nutrient density-to-cost ratio of NZ foods; (ii) model the impact of substituting foods with a lower nutrient density-to-cost ratio with those with a higher nutrient density-to-cost ratio on diet quality and affordability in representative NZ population samples for low and medium socioeconomic status (SES) households by ethnicity; and (iii) evaluate food processing level. Foods were categorized, coded for processing level and discretionary status, analyzed for nutrient density and cost, and ranked by nutrient density-to-cost ratio. The top quartile of nutrient dense, low-cost foods were 56% unprocessed (vegetables, fruit, porridge, pasta, rice, nuts/seeds), 31% ultra-processed (vegetable dishes, fortified bread, breakfast cereals unfortified <15 g sugars/100 g and fortified 15–30 g sugars/100 g), 6% processed (fruit juice), and 6% culinary processed (oils). Using substitution modeling, diet quality improved by 59% and 71% for adults and children, respectively, and affordability increased by 20–24%, depending on ethnicity and SES. The NZ diet can be made healthier and more affordable when nutritious, low-cost foods are selected. Processing levels in the healthier, modeled diet suggest that some non-discretionary ultra-processed foods may provide a valuable source of low-cost nutrition for food insecure populations

Life and living in advanced age: a cohort study in New Zealand - Te Puāwaitanga o Nga Tapuwae Kia Ora Tonu, LiLACS NZ: Study protocol

The number of people of advanced age (85&thinsp;years and older) is increasing and health systems may be challenged by increasing health-related needs. Recent overseas evidence suggests relatively high levels of wellbeing in this group, however little is known about people of advanced age, particularly the indigenous Māori, in Aotearoa, New Zealand. This paper outlines the methods of the study Life and Living in Advanced Age: A Cohort Study in New Zealand. The study aimed to establish predictors of successful advanced ageing and understand the relative importance of health, frailty, cultural, social &amp; economic factors to successful ageing for Māori and non-Māori in New Zealand

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Changing New Zealanders' attitudes to milk? / Carol Wham

Investigates the relationship between consumer attitudes and the effects of TV advertising of milk in New Zealand, in light of the long-term decline in milk consumption.The findings indicate that, in order to reverse the decline in milk consumption, the milk industry must develop advertising strategies that have more relevance to consumers, and that further research is required in order to understand the relevance of milk in consumer lifestyles.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Public Health, 2000

Attitudes towards Inclusion of Sustainability Characteristics within New Zealand’s Eating and Activity Guidelines by Professionals in the Agriculture, Environment and Health Sectors

Background: Globally, adverse health and environmental changes are occurring associated withchanges in the food and nutrition system [...