Web-Based Personalized Nutrition System for Delivering Dietary Feedback Based on Behavior Change Techniques: Development and Pilot Study among Dietitians

Given the complex and varied nature of individual characteristics influencing dietary behaviors, personalized dietary advice may be more effective than generalized “one-size-fits-all” advice. In this paper, we describe a web-based personalized nutrition system for improving the quality of overall diet in the general adult population. The development process included identification of appropriate behavior change techniques, modification of dietary assessment method (Meal-based Diet History Questionnaire; MDHQ), selection of dietary components, and a personalized dietary feedback tool. A pilot study was conducted online among 255 dietitians. Each completed the MDHQ, received his/her own dietary feedback report, and evaluated the relevance of the report based on 12 questions using a 5-point Likert scale from “totally disagree” (score 1) to “totally agree” (score 5). The mean value of overall acceptability score of dietary feedback report was 4.2. The acceptability score was, on average, higher in plausible energy reporters (compared with implausible energy reporters), participants who printed out the report (compared with those who did not), and those spending ≥20 min to read the report (compared with those spending <20 min). This is the first attempt to develop a web-based personalized nutrition system in Japan, where dietitians were broadly supportive of the dietary feedback report

Self-perceived food literacy in relation to the quality of overall diet and main meals: A cross-sectional study in Japanese adults

This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the relationship between self-perceived food literacy (SPFL) and quality of overall diet and main meals in Japanese adults. In total, 5998 adults aged 20-79 years were included in this analysis. The SPFL was assessed using the Japanese version of the 29-item Dutch SPFL scale (score range 1-5). Using validated dietary information, the Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015) was calculated (score range 0-100). The mean SPFL was 3.18; the internal consistency of the overall scale was considered good (Cronbach's alpha: 0.80). The mean HEI-2015 for overall diet was 50.4. The SPFL was significantly and positively associated with the HEI-2015. Using multiple linear regression, one point increase of SPFL corresponded to an increase in HEI-2015 by a point of 4.8 for overall diet, 6.2 for breakfast, 4.6 for lunch, and 3.6 for dinner (all P

Consumption of highly processed foods in relation to overall diet quality among Japanese adults: a nationwide study

Abstract Objective: To (i) examine the consumption of highly processed foods (HPFs) in relation to diet quality among Japanese adults and (ii) compare the results when dishes prepared away home are disaggregated into food ingredients before classification by processing levels and the results when they are not. Design: Cross-sectional analysis using 4-day dietary record data. Foods were categorised by level of processing using the framework developed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Specifically, dishes prepared away from home were classified at both the food level (classified after disaggregation into ingredients) and dish level (classified without disaggregation). Diet quality was assessed using the Healthy Eating Index-2015 and Nutrient-Rich Food Index 9.3. Setting: Twenty areas in Japan. Participants: Adults aged 20–69 years (n 388). Results: Energy contribution of HPFs was higher when dishes prepared away from home were classified at dish level than food level (48.3% vs. 32.9%, P<0.0001). Regardless of the classification method, cereals and starchy foods were the top food groups contributing to total energy intake from HPFs. After adjusting for potential confounders, participants in higher tertiles of the energy contribution of HPFs had lower total scores for Healthy Eating Index-2015 and Nutrient-Rich Food Index 9.3 (P for trend ≤0.007 for all), irrespective of the food- or dish-level classification. Conclusions: HPFs account for at least one-third of energy intake of Japanese adults. Regardless of the classification methods for dishes prepared away from home, higher consumption of HPFs was associated with lower diet quality

Web-Based Content on Diet and Nutrition Written in Japanese: Infodemiology Study Based on Google Trends and Google Search

The increased availability of content of uncertain integrity obtained through the internet is a major concern. To date, however, there has been no comprehensive scrutiny of the fitness-for-purpose of web-based content on diet and nutrition. This cross-sectional study aims to describe diet- and nutrition-related web-based content written in Japanese, identified via a systematic extraction strategy using Google Trends and Google Search. We first identified keywords relevant for extracting web-based content (eg, blogs) on diet and nutrition written in Japanese using Google Trends. This process included identification of 638 seed terms, identification of approximately 1500 pairs of related queries (top) and search terms, the top 10% of which were extracted to identify 160 relevant pairs of related queries (top) and search terms, and identification of 107 keywords for search. We then extracted relevant web-based content using Google Search. The content (N=1703) examined here was extracted following a search based on 107 keywords. The most common themes included food and beverages (390/1703, 22.9%), weight management (366/1703, 21.49%), health benefits (261/1703, 15.33%), and healthy eating (235/1703, 13.8%). The main disseminators were information technology companies and mass media (474/1703, 27.83%), food manufacturers (246/1703, 14.45%), other (236/1703, 13.86%), and medical institutions (214/1703, 12.57%). Less than half of the content (790/1703, 46.39%) clearly indicated the involvement of editors or writers. More than half of the content (983/1703, 57.72%) was accompanied by one or more types of advertisement. The proportion of content with any type of citation reference was 40.05% (682/1703). The themes and disseminators of content were significantly associated with the involvement of editors or writers, accompaniment with advertisement, and citation of reference. In particular, content focusing on weight management was more likely to clearly indicate the involvement of editors or writers (212/366, 57.9%) and to be accompanied by advertisement (273/366, 74.6%), but less likely to have references cited (128/366, 35%). Content from medical institutions was less likely to have citation references (62/214, 29%). This study highlights concerns regarding the authorship, conflicts of interest (advertising), and the scientific credibility of web-based diet- and nutrition-related information written in Japanese. Nutrition professionals and experts should take these findings seriously because exposure to nutritional information that lacks context or seems contradictory can lead to confusion and backlash among consumers. However, more research is needed to draw firm conclusions about the accuracy and quality of web-based diet- and nutrition-related content and whether similar results can be obtained in other major mass media or social media outlets and even other languages. [Abstract copyright: ©Kentaro Murakami, Nana Shinozaki, Nana Kimoto, Hiroko Onodera, Fumi Oono, Tracy A McCaffrey, M Barbara E Livingstone, Tsuyoshi Okuhara, Mai Matsumoto, Ryoko Katagiri, Erika Ota, Tsuyoshi Chiba, Yuki Nishida, Satoshi Sasaki. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 16.11.2023.