#Healthy: smart digital food safety and nutrition communication strategies—a critical commentary

This paper explores how food safety and nutrition organisations can harness the power of search engines, games, apps, social media, and digital analytics tools to craft broad-reaching and engaging digital communications. We start with search engines, showing how organisations can identify popular food safety and nutrition queries, facilitating the creation of timely and in-demand content. To ensure this content is discoverable by search engines, we cover several non-technical aspects of search engine optimisation (SEO). We next explore the potential of games, apps, social media, and going viral for reaching and engaging the public, and how digital data-based tools can be used to optimise communications. Throughout, we draw on examples not only from Europe and North America, but also China. While we are enthusiastic about the benefits of digital communications, we recognise that they are not without their drawbacks and challenges. To help organisations evaluate whether a given digital approach is appropriate for their objectives, we end each section with a discussion of limitations. We conclude with a discussion of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the practical, philosophical, and policy challenges associated with communicating food safety and nutrition information digitally

A framework of social media engagement:case studies with food and consumer organisations in the UK and Ireland

For organisations that interface with a large audience (i.e. governments, businesses, consumer bodies, non-profits), there are expectations that engagement on social media can improve responsiveness. The paper develops a framework of social media engagement based on a case study with food governance and consumer organisations in the UK and Ireland. Application of the framework identifies three key capabilities that can frame the contribution of social media engagement in this context: (1) consistency in managing social interactions, (2) creating content to engage with specific audiences and (3) using social media as information sources to develop network alertness. Moving beyond simply characterising social media engagement in terms of the speed and volume of social interactions, this study contributes to a more systematic examination of the concept as an enabler of organisational responsiveness.</p

How do adults define the treats they give to children? A thematic analysis

One in four children on the Island of Ireland are overweight or obese. The consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods such as snacks, contribute to one fifth of children’s calorie intake. However the snack food literature has failed to draw firm conclusions between snack food intake and obesity. Within this literature, the word snack and treat are used interchangeably, inconsistently and in differing contexts, which may explain the poor link between snacks or extra foods, and overweight or obesity. There is currently no academic definition of the word ‘treat’ relevant to an Irish population. Defining how adults perceive the treats they give children is of particular importance in the context of children’s diets, and may provide insight into the relative contribution of treats to energy intakes. With ten focus groups of adult caregivers of children, across the Island of Ireland, this study aimed to investigate treat giving behaviour. This research highlights a paradoxical definition of treats: a treat was identified as an energy-dense food that gave pleasure, was deserved and believed to be infrequent; participants perceived this to be the true definition of treats which was coined “real treats”. However, in reality, treats were given and consumed frequently, downgrading the status of these treats to “regular treats” which reflected their real-life use. Developing the definition of treats for an adult population may enhance our understanding of why adults give food treats to children, the role this has on the development of eating habits, the design of interventions, and communication strategies to reduce the consumption of non-nutritive foods, labelled by adults as treats

Is it still a real treat? Adults' treat provision to children

Consumption of high-energy foods in the absence of hunger has been identified as a key target to address in the area of obesity. For children, such foods are often provided by adults as treats. There is limited understating of adults' treat giving. The present study aimed to understand adults' provision of treats to children on the Island of Ireland. A total of 1039 participants, including parents, grandparents, child minders and education practitioners completed a face-to-face survey in their home. Participants defined their treats for children primarily as ‘something nice’, ‘deserved/earned’ and ‘something special’. The top three motivations for treat foods provision were ‘to reward for good behaviour’ (42.3%), ‘because the child(ren) ask’ (42.2%) and ‘to make the child(ren) feel better’ (29.4%). Almost all participants would provide treat foods at celebrations and 52.5% always did so. In addition, 68% participants had structured weekly and/or daily treat for children. Treats provided to children were dominated by energy-dense foods. The top three were sweets, chocolates and ice-creams, being used by 45.2%, 45.1% and 38.8% participants. Variations were observed across different adult groups, in terms of their treat giving behaviour. The main observation was that adults' treat foods provision has become habitual. The findings can help develop targeted strategies to encourage the reduction or replacement of food treats for children

Short-range nematic fluctuations in Sr1-xNaxFe2As2 superconductors

Interactions between nematic fluctuations, magnetic order and superconductivity are central to the physics of iron-based superconductors. Here we report on in-plane transverse acoustic phonons in hole-doped Sr$_{1-x}$Na$_x$Fe$_2$As$_2$ measured via inelastic X-ray scattering, and extract both the nematic susceptibility and the nematic correlation length. By a self-contained method of analysis, for the underdoped ($x=0.36$) sample, which harbors a magnetically-ordered tetragonal phase, we find it hosts a short nematic correlation length $\xi$ ~ 10 $\AA$ and a large nematic susceptibility $\chi_{\rm nem}$. The optimal-doped ($x=0.55$) sample exhibits weaker phonon softening effects, indicative of both reduced $\xi$ and $\chi_{\rm nem}$. Our results suggest short-range nematic fluctuations may favor superconductivity, placing emphasis on the nematic correlation length for understanding the iron-based superconductors

What makes smartphone games successful in food information communication?

China’s annual Food Safety Publicity Week in June 2019 has, for the first time, included smartphone games in its activities. Food related governmental and non-governmental organizations liaised with Alipay (Alibaba’s payment application) launching a smartphone quiz-game with an unprecedented level of public engagement with food information (i.e., food safety, nutrition, and food science and technologies): 12 million participants and 1.7 billion instances of participation within 1 week. This example demonstrates the great potential of smartphone games, and more widely, digital tools, in food-related public education. Given the extent of misinformation among the public on food safety and nutrition issues, food scientists and organizations should be empowered to embrace emerging tools, such as smartphone games, in order to positively shape public opinions. To aid in this task, this commentary article analyzes the factors behind the unprecedented success of Alipay’s smartphone quiz-game during China’s Food Safety Publicity Week

Exploring coverage of the 2008 Irish dioxin crisis in Irish and UK newsprint media

The 2008 dioxin crisis occurred as a result of contamination of Irish pork. The event had significant implications for Ireland’s economy and the reputation of its agricultural industry, as well as raising concerns for human health. This study describes the results of a content analysis of Irish and UK newspaper coverage of the 2008 Irish dioxin crisis, as this is likely to provide insight into how public perceptions of this issue were shaped. Articles from 16 print publications were systematically sampled for the period December 2008 to February 2009. The resulting data set of 141 articles was examined using a coding protocol developed based on previous research and refined during piloting. Results indicated that the dioxin crisis was primarily portrayed by the media as an industry/economic crisis, dominant in 26.9% of articles in the sample. Within this dominant portrayal, the agricultural industry was frequently cited as being in crisis (42.6%); however, the implications of the crisis on the wider economic environment also received attention (17.7%). Differences between Irish and UK-based media were also examined, revealing that while the Irish media most frequently described the crisis in terms of its impact on the industry and economy, the UK media were more likely to portray the crisis as a risk to health. These dominant media messages and message framings have implications for the public understanding of the issue in each country and potential consequences regarding perception of the adequacy of existing food policy and regulatory oversight.European Commission - Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)FoodRisC projec