Prévention des déficiences chez les personnes sans-abri : intérêt d’un aliment de rue enrichi

Pour mieux prévenir la dénutrition et les déficiences vitaminiques et minérales chez les personnes en situation d’exclusion, nous avons mis au point un aliment enrichi facile à consommer dans la rue : le Vitapoche®. Il s’agit d’une pâte chocolatée résistante à la contamination bactérienne, emballée dans un sachet hermétique. Cette pâte est naturellement riche en potassium et en acides gras oméga-3. Elle a été enrichie en calcium, zinc et vitamines C, B1, B9, PP, B12, E et D, afin que chaque sachet (70 g, 377 kcal) apporte ces nutriments en quantité nécessaire pour la journée. Outre son intérêt nutritionnel évident, le Vitapoche® présente aussi un double intérêt économique, pour le donateur et pour le bénéficiaire. Une étude d’acceptabilité menée au sein de la population cible à Paris a montré que deux personnes sur trois consommeraient régulièrement du Vitapoche® si elles pouvaient se le procurer facilement. Le Vitapoche® n’est pas un substitut de repas. Il n’est pas destiné à remplacer l’aide alimentaire déjà existante, mais il la complète, afin d’en optimiser la qualité nutritionnelle.homeless, fortified food, nutrient deficiencies, economic value, food aid

Contraintes budgétaires et choix alimentaires : pauvreté des ménages, pauvreté de l’alimentation ?

Les politiques nutritionnelles émettent des recommandations visant à améliorer la qualité de l'alimentation. On peut s'interroger sur la portée sociale de ces normes nutritionnelles qui seraient particulièrement difficiles à respecter pour les populations à bas revenu. Aussi est-il opportun de vérifier dans quelle mesure, sur le plan théorique, les recommandations nutritionnelles peuvent être remplies avec un faible budget alimentaire. Les enquêtes montrent que la consommation alimentaire des populations pauvres reflète le poids des contraintes financières sous diverses formes. Ces contraintes ont-elles un impact significatif sur la qualité des produits consommés et peuvent-elles entraîner des déséquilibres alimentaires ? Cette interrogation débouche sur un débat majeur, celui de l'opportunité d'une politique d'intervention sur les prix alimentaires.

Évaluation de l’insécurité alimentaire dans le Comté de Sacramento

En 2001, environ 56 000 adultes étaient considérés en situation d’insécurité alimentaire dans le Comté de Sacramento. Malgré les six programmes d’aide alimentaire administrés par le gouvernement américain, le nombre de personnes ayant recours à des structures d’aide alimentaire d’urgence n’a cessé de croître durant les 20 dernières années. Notre étude a pour objectif de connaître les personnes ayant recours à l’aide alimentaire d’urgence et d’évaluer l’utilisation des programmes gouvernementaux au sein du Comté. Pour cela, 338 personnes ont été interrogées dans les structures d’aide alimentaire d’urgence et des entretiens ont été effectués avec les responsables de chaque programme gouvernemental. Notre étude montre que les programmes gouvernementaux sont sousutilisés principalement du fait du manque d’information auprès des personnes éligibles et de barrières telles que la difficulté d’accéder aux centres, les problèmes de langue pour de nombreux immigrés ou des lourdeurs administratives.food aid, federal food assistance programs, food security, challenges

Linear programming can help identify practical solutions to improve the nutritional quality of food aid.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the nutritional quality of food aid delivered by food banks in France and to identify practical modifications to improve it. DESIGN: National-level data were collected for all food aid distributed by French food banks in 2004, and its nutrient content per 2000 kcal was estimated and compared with French recommendations for adults. Starting with the actual donation and allowing new foods into the food aid donation, linear programming was used to identify the minimum changes required in the actual donation to achieve the French recommendations. RESULTS: French food-bank-delivered food aid does not achieve the French recommendations for dietary fibre, ascorbic acid, vitamin D, folate, magnesium, docosahexaenoic acid, alpha-linolenic acid and the percentage of energy from saturated fatty acids. Linear programming analysis showed that these recommendations are achievable if more fruits, vegetables, legumes and fish were collected and less cheese, refined cereals and foods rich in fat, sugar and/or salt. In addition, new foods not previously collected are needed, particularly nuts, wholemeal bread and rapeseed oil. These changes increased the total edible weight (42%) and economic value (55%) of the food aid donation, with one-third of its edible weight coming from fruits and vegetables, one-third from staples, one-quarter from dairy products and approximately a tenth from meat/fish/eggs. CONCLUSIONS: Important changes in the types and amounts of food collected will improve the nutritional quality of food-bank-delivered food aid in France. Such changes are recommended to improve the diets of deprived French populations

The Saito-Kurokawa lifting and Darmon points

Let E_{/_\Q} be an elliptic curve of conductor $Np$ with $p\nmid N$ and let $f$ be its associated newform of weight 2. Denote by $f_\infty$ the $p$-adic Hida family passing though $f$, and by $F_\infty$ its $\Lambda$-adic Saito-Kurokawa lift. The $p$-adic family $F_\infty$ of Siegel modular forms admits a formal Fourier expansion, from which we can define a family of normalized Fourier coefficients $\{\widetilde A_T(k)\}_T$ indexed by positive definite symmetric half-integral matrices $T$ of size $2\times 2$. We relate explicitly certain global points on $E$ (coming from the theory of Stark-Heegner points) with the values of these Fourier coefficients and of their $p$-adic derivatives, evaluated at weight $k=2$.Comment: 14 pages. Title change

Use of Linear Programming to Develop Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Health Promoting Food Baskets

Background Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) are developed to promote healthier eating patterns, but increasing food prices may make healthy eating less affordable. The aim of this study was to design a range of cost-minimized nutritionally adequate health-promoting food baskets (FBs) that help prevent both micronutrient inadequacy and diet-related non-communicable diseases at lowest cost. [br/] Methods Average prices for 312 foods were collected within the Greater Copenhagen area. The cost and nutrient content of five different cost-minimized FBs for a family of four were calculated per day using linear programming. The FBs were defined using five different constraints: cultural acceptability (CA), or dietary guidelines (DG), or nutrient recommendations (N), or cultural acceptability and nutrient recommendations (CAN), or dietary guidelines and nutrient recommendations (DGN). The variety and number of foods in each of the resulting five baskets was increased through limiting the relative share of individual foods. [br/] Results The one-day version of N contained only 12 foods at the minimum cost of DKK 27 ((sic)3.6). The CA, DG, and DGN were about twice of this and the CAN cost similar to DKK 81 ((sic)10.8). The baskets with the greater variety of foods contained from 70 (CAN) to 134 (DGN) foods and cost between DKK 60 ((sic)8.1, N) and DKK 125 ((sic)16.8, DGN). Ensuring that the food baskets cover both dietary guidelines and nutrient recommendations doubled the cost while cultural acceptability (CAN) tripled it. [br/] Conclusion Use of linear programming facilitates the generation of low-cost food baskets that are nutritionally adequate, health promoting, and culturally acceptable

Ultra-processed foods: how functional is the NOVA system?

BACKGROUND: In the NOVA classification system, descriptive criteria are used to assign foods to one of four groups based on processing-related criteria. Although NOVA is widely used, its robustness and functionality remain largely unexplored. We determined whether this system leads to consistent food assignments by users. METHODS: French food and nutrition specialists completed an online survey in which they assigned foods to NOVA groups. The survey comprised two lists: one with 120 marketed food products with ingredient information and one with 111 generic food items without ingredient information. We quantified assignment consistency among evaluators using Fleiss' κ (range: 0-1, where 1 = 100% agreement). Hierarchical clustering on principal components identified clusters of foods with similar distributions of NOVA assignments. RESULTS: Fleiss' κ was 0.32 and 0.34 for the marketed foods (n = 159 evaluators) and generic foods (n = 177 evaluators), respectively. There were three clusters within the marketed foods: one contained 90 foods largely assigned to NOVA4 (91% of assignments), while the two others displayed greater assignment heterogeneity. There were four clusters within the generic foods: three clusters contained foods mostly assigned to a single NOVA group (69-79% of assignments), and the fourth cluster comprised 28 foods whose assignments were more evenly distributed across the four NOVA groups. CONCLUSIONS: Although assignments were more consistent for some foods than others, overall consistency among evaluators was low, even when ingredient information was available. These results suggest current NOVA criteria do not allow for robust and functional food assignments

Socioeconomic Patterning of Childhood Overweight Status in Europe

There is growing evidence of social disparities in overweight among European children. This paper examines whether there is an association between socioeconomic inequality and prevalence of child overweight in European countries, and if socioeconomic disparities in child overweight are increasing. We analyse cross-country comparisons of household inequality and child overweight prevalence in Europe and review within-country variations over time of childhood overweight by social grouping, drawn from a review of the literature. Data from 22 European countries suggest that greater inequality in household income is positively associated with both self-reported and measured child overweight prevalence. Moreover, seven studies from four countries reported on the influence of socioeconomic factors on the distribution of child overweight over time. Four out of seven reported widening social disparities in childhood overweight, a fifth found statistically significant disparities only in a small sub-group, one found non-statistically significant disparities, and a lack of social gradient was reported in the last study. Where there is evidence of a widening social gradient in child overweight, it is likely that the changes in lifestyles and dietary habits involved in the increase in the prevalence of overweight have had a less favourable impact in low socio-economic status groups than in the rest of the population. More profound structural changes, based on population-wide social and environmental interventions are needed to halt the increasing social gradient in child overweight in current and future generations