Comparison of school day eating behaviours of 8–11 year old children from Adelaide, South Australia, and London, England

Abstract: Objective: School food intake makes a considerable contribution to children’s overall diet, especially fruit and vegetable intake. Comparing differing school food provision systems can provide novel insights for intervention and improved nutrition policy. This study compared school day food in children from Australia and England. Design: Children completed food frequency questionnaires reporting school day food intake, breakfast intake and family evening meals. Differences in school day food intake consumed between Australia and England were evaluated. Multinomial logistic regressions compared fruit and vegetable intake, family dinner frequency and breakfast in Australian and English children adjusting for confounders: Age, sex, ethnicity and parent education. Setting: 27 Primary schools in Adelaide, Australia and 32 in London, England. Subjects: N = 772 children aged 8–11 years from the Australian REACH study (n = 347) and UK RHS School Gardening Trial in England (n = 425). Results: Considerably more English children reported consuming vegetables at school than Australian children (recess/lunchtime Australian children 3.4/6.1%; English children recess/lunctime 3.6/51.1%). However, Australian children were more likely to consume vegetables daily (OR = 4.1; 1.3, 12.5), and have family evening meals everyday [OR = 4.01; 1.88, 8.55], and were less likely to consume breakfast (OR = 0.26; 0.08, 0.79) than English children. Conclusions: Findings indicate that provision of a school lunch meal, compared to a packed lunch from home, may be more supportive of children’s vegetable intake. However, without a supportive home environment that encourages vegetable intake, children will not be able to consume sufficient amounts of vegetables

Consideration of nutritional value and food labels are associated with food intake in adults with depression

Background/Aims: Individuals with depression are more likely to consume poor diets and as a result are at increased risk of poor cardiometabolic health. Healthy diet may reduce depressive symptoms, however better understanding is needed of factors that support healthy eating in this population. There is limited evidence about how much consideration of the nutritional value of foods may be associated with food choices. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between food intake and consideration of nutritional value of foods in adults with depression. Methods: Adults (n = 161) with depression completed a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire and shopping and budgeting questionnaire. Associations between consideration of nutritional value and nutrition label use with vegetable, wholegrain, legume, snack food and soft drink intake were evaluated using linear regression, adjusting for age, gender and education. Results: In adjusted models, more consideration of the nutrition value of foods was positively associated with vegetable intake (β = 0.188; p = 0.025), wholegrain intake (β = 0.213; p = 0.015) and negatively associated with snack food intake (β = -0.236, p = 0.006). More frequent reading of nutrition labels was positively associated with legume intake (β = 0.185; p = 0.036). Better understanding of nutrition labels was positively associated with vegetable intake (β = 0.780; p = 0.035), wholegrain intake (β = 0.233; p = 0.008), and legume intake (β = 0.254; p = 0.004). There were no associations between soft drink intake and nutrition value consideration or nutrition label use. Conclusions: These findings suggest that increasing consideration of the nutrition value of foods and nutrition label use may support healthy eating in adults with depression

A Mediterranean-style dietary intervention supplemented with fish oil improves diet quality and mental health in people with depression: a randomized controlled trial (HELFIMED)

We investigated whether a Mediterranean-style diet (MedDiet) supplemented with fish oil can improve mental health in adults suffering depression.Adults with self-reported depression were randomized to receive fortnightly food hampers and MedDiet cooking workshops for 3 months and fish oil supplements for 6 months, or attend social groups fortnightly for 3 months. Assessments at baseline, 3 and 6 months included mental health, quality of life (QoL) and dietary questionnaires, and blood samples for erythrocyte fatty acid analysis.n = 152 eligible adults aged 18-65 were recruited (n = 95 completed 3-month and n = 85 completed 6-month assessments). At 3 months, the MedDiet group had a higher MedDiet score (t = 3.95, P < 0.01), consumed more vegetables (t = 3.95, P < 0.01), fruit (t = 2.10, P = 0.04), nuts (t = 2.29, P = 0.02), legumes (t = 2.41, P = 0.02) wholegrains (t = 2.63, P = 0.01), and vegetable diversity (t = 3.27, P < 0.01); less unhealthy snacks (t = -2.10, P = 0.04) and red meat/chicken (t = -2.13, P = 0.04). The MedDiet group had greater reduction in depression (t = -2.24, P = 0.03) and improved mental health QoL scores (t = 2.10, P = 0.04) at 3 months. Improved diet and mental health were sustained at 6 months. Reduced depression was correlated with an increased MedDiet score (r = -0.298, P = 0.01), nuts (r = -0.264, P = 0.01), and vegetable diversity (r = -0.303, P = 0.01). Other mental health improvements had similar correlations, most notably for increased vegetable diversity and legumes. There were some correlations between increased omega-3, decreased omega-6 and improved mental health.This is one of the first randomized controlled trials to show that healthy dietary changes are achievable and, supplemented with fish oil, can improve mental health in people with depression.Natalie Parletta, Dorota Zarnowiecki, Jihyun Cho, Amy Wilson, Svetlana Bogomolova, Anthony Villani, Catherine Itsiopoulos, Theo Niyonsenga, Sarah Blunden, Barbara Meyer, Leonie Segal, Bernhard T. Baune and Kerin O’De

Healthy dietary indices and risk of depressive outcomes : a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

With depression being the psychiatric disorder incurring the largest societal costs in developed countries, there is a need to gather evidence on the role of nutrition in depression, to help develop recommendations and guide future psychiatric health care. The aim of this systematic review was to synthesize the link between diet quality, measured using a range of predefined indices, and depressive outcomes. Medline, Embase and PsychInfo were searched up to 31st May 2018 for studies that examined adherence to a healthy diet in relation to depressive symptoms or clinical depression. Where possible, estimates were pooled using random effect meta-analysis with stratification by observational study design and dietary score. A total of 20 longitudinal and 21 cross-sectional studies were included. These studies utilized an array of dietary measures, including: different measures of adherence to the Mediterranean diet, the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) and Alternative HEI (AHEI), the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and the Dietary Inflammatory Index. The most compelling evidence was found for the Mediterranean diet and incident depression, with a combined relative risk estimate of highest vs. lowest adherence category from four longitudinal studies of 0.67 (95% CI 0.55-0.82). A lower Dietary Inflammatory Index was also associated with lower depression incidence in four longitudinal studies (relative risk 0.76; 95% CI: 0.63-0.92). There were fewer longitudinal studies using other indices, but they and cross-sectional evidence also suggest an inverse association between healthy diet and depression (e.g., relative risk 0.65; 95% CI 0.50-0.84 for HEI/AHEI). To conclude, adhering to a healthy diet, in particular a traditional Mediterranean diet, or avoiding a pro-inflammatory diet appears to confer some protection against depression in observational studies. This provides a reasonable evidence base to assess the role of dietary interventions to prevent depression.Peer reviewe

Associations between predictors of children’s dietary intake and socioeconomic position : a systematic review of the literature

Socioeconomically disadvantaged children are at higher risk of consuming poor diets, in particular less fruits and vegetables and more non-core foods and sweetened beverages. Currently the drivers of socioeconomically related differences in children’s dietary intake are not well understood. This systematic review explored whether dietary predictors vary for children of different socioeconomic circumstances. Seven databases and reference lists of included material were searched for studies investigating predictors of 9–13-year-old children’s diet in relation to socioeconomic position. Individual- and population-based cross-sectional, cohort and epidemiological studies published in English and conducted in developed countries were included. Twenty-eight studies were included in this review; most were conducted in Europe (n = 12) or North America (n = 10). The most frequently used indicators of socioeconomic position were parent education and occupation. Predictors of children’s dietary intake varied among children of different socioeconomic circumstances. Socioeconomic position was consistently associated with children’s nutrition knowledge, parent modelling, home food availability and accessibility. Indeterminate associations with socioeconomic position were observed for parent feeding practices and food environment near school. Differences in the determinants of eating between socioeconomic groups provide a better understanding of the drivers of socioeconomic disparities in dietary intake, and how to develop targeted intervention strategies.

Associations between parenting styles and nutrition knowledge and 2-5-year-old children's fruit, vegetable and non-core food consumption

OBJECTIVE: During the early years, parents have a major influence on children’s diets and developing food choices. We investigated parenting styles as predictors of 2–5-year-old children’s diets and whether general nutrition knowledge (GNK) mediated these influences. DESIGN: Cross-sectional research. Questionnaires measured demographic and lifestyle variables, family environment, parenting styles and feeding practices, child diet and GNK. Regression models tested GNK as a mediator of relationships between parenting variables and child diet (fruit/vegetable and non-core food consumption), controlling for confounders and family environment. SETTING: Questionnaires were completed by main caregivers at home. SUBJECTS: Parents of children aged 2–5 years (n 269). RESULTS: Higher child fruit/vegetable consumption was associated with lower overreactive parenting and restriction, higher authoritative parenting and dining together as a family; with lax parenting approaching statistical significance (P50?083) and 19% of variance explained by the model. GNK was not a significant predictor. Conversely, non-core food consumption was associated with higher over-reactive and lax parenting as well as child age, increased takeaway food consumption and higher television viewing; GNK had a small effect (P = 0.043) and 28% of variance was explained by the model. GNK was a significant mediator only for authoritative parenting on non-core food (effect = -0.005). CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight that young children’s diets may be improved by interventions targeting a range of positive and supportive parenting practices in conjunction with nutrition knowledge education for parents of young children. Further insights will come from closer attention to the nature and role of restrictive feeding practices v. laxness and longitudinal research.Jacqueline Peters, James Dollman, John Petkov, and Natalie Parlett