Factors Affecting the Body Mass Index in Adolescents in Portuguese Schools

The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children is increasing; hence, it was aimed to assess the Body Mass Index (BMI) in school children aged from 10 to 18 years for girls and to 17 for boys, as well as to identify the factors influencing BMI. This study included 742 students who answered a questionnaire previously approved for application in schools. The results showed some sociodemographic factors associated with BMI classes: age, school year, practicing high competition sport, being federate in a sport or having a vegetarian diet. The educational factors associated with BMI classes included only seminars given at school by a nutritionist. Behavioural factors significantly associated with BMI included: learning in classes, playing in the open air, reading books or use of internet. As conclusion, the results demonstrated that several factors affect BMI, and hence some actions could be taken in order to change them so as to reduce the prevalence of overweight, namely reinforcing the role of school and a more active participation of nutritionists in the education of the adolescents

Influence of sociodemographic factors on eating motivations - modelling through artificial neural networks (ANN)

This study aimed at investigating the influence of some sociodemographic factors on the eating motivations. A longitudinal study was carried conducted with 11960 participants from 16 countries. Data analysis included t-test for independent samples or ANOVA, and neural network models were also created, to relate the input and output variables. Results showed that factors like age, marital status, country, living environment, level of education or professional area significantly influenced all of the studied types of eating motivations. Neural networks modelling indicated variability in the food choices, but identifying some trends, for example the strongest positive factor determining health motivations was age, while for emotional motivations was living environment, and for economic and availability motivations was gender. On the other hand, country revealed a high positive influence for the social and cultural as well as for environmental and political and also for marketing and commercial motivations.This is the peer-reviewed version of the following article: Guine, R. P. F.; Ferrao, A. C.; Ferreira, M.; Correia, P.; Mendes, M.; Bartkiene, E.; Szucs, V.; Tarcea, M.; Matek-Sarić, M.; Cernelić-Bizjak, M.; Isoldi, K.; EL-Kenawy, A.; Ferreira, V.; Klava, D.; Korzeniowska, M.; Vittadini, E.; Leal, M.; Frez-Munoz, L.; Papageorgiou, M.; Djekić, I. Influence of Sociodemographic Factors on Eating Motivations - Modelling through Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition 2020, 71 (5), 614–627. [https://doi.org/10.1080/09637486.2019.1695758]

Can we understand food oral processing using Kano model? Case study with confectionery products

This study had two objectives, to determine oral processing parameters and its correlation with mechanical properties of selected confectionery products and to categorize oral processing and sensory attributes based on a Kano model. Thirteen panelists analyzed five confectionery products in the oral processing part of the study. In parallel, 327 interviews participated in a field survey to enable analyzing responses to food quality and oral processing attributes. It has been confirmed that oral processing parameters are interrelated with most of the mechanical properties of confectionery products. Average number of bites is correlated with consumption time per bite, chewing rate, and bite size. Consumption time and chewing rate were negatively correlated for Brownie cake. Satiation was associated with eating rate and calorie intake rate for Jelly Candy and Waffle. All food quality requirements were categorized as "attractive" and "one-dimensional." Oral processing parameters-food breakdown and eating rate are aligned to "attractive" category, bite size was identified as a "must-be" category, and number of chews is outlined as a "reverse" category. The Kano model results show that oral processing parameters have a strong influence on consumer satisfaction in parallel with well-known sensorial characteristics associated with food quality

Antimicrobial, Antioxidant, Sensory Properties, and Emotions Induced for the Consumers of Nutraceutical Beverages Developed from Technological Functionalised Food Industry By-Products

This study aims to develop nutraceutical beverages containing food processing by-products in their formulation, and determine the opinion of consumers. This is done by testing whether they know that the main ingredients of the product are by-products, performing an overall acceptability test of the developed beverages, and evaluating the emotions induced by the newly developed beverages for consumers. The main ingredients used for the preparation of added-value beverages were fermented milk permeate (containing galactooligosaccharides), extruded and fermented wheat bran (WB) (containing ≥6.0 log10 CFU g−1 viable antimicrobial properties showing lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strains), and different fruit/berry by-products (FBB) (as a source of compounds showing antioxidant properties). The definition of the quantities of bioactive ingredients was based on the overall acceptability of the prepared beverages, as well as on emotions induced in consumers by the tested beverages. Functional properties of the developed beverages were proofed by the evaluation of their antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, as well as viable LAB count during storage. Desirable changes in extruded and fermented WB were obtained: Fermentation reduced sugar concentration and pH in samples with predominant lactic acid isomer L(+). In addition, the viable LAB count in the substrate was higher than 6.0 log10 CFU g−1, and no enterobacteria remained. By comparing the overall acceptability of the beverages enriched with WB, the highest overall acceptability was shown for the samples prepared with 10 g of the extruded and fermented WB (7.9 points). FBB showed desirable antimicrobial activity: Shepherd inhibited—2, sea buckthorn—3, blueberries—5, and raspberries—7 pathogens from the 10 tested. Comparing different beverage groups prepared with different types of FBB, in most cases (except sea buckthorn), by increasing FBB content the beverages overall acceptability [...]

Study about Food Choice Determinants According to Six Types of Conditioning Motivations in a Sample of 11,960 Participants

Many aspects linked to personal characteristics, society and culture constitute some of the motivators that drive food choice. The aim of this work was to determine in what extent the eating behaviors of individuals are shaped by six different types of determinants, namely: health, emotions, price and availability, society and culture, environment and politics, and marketing and commercials. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study, involving a non-probabilistic sample of 11,960 participants from 16 countries. The objective of this work was to validate the questionnaire, so as to make it suitable for application in different contexts and different countries. For that, six scales were considered for validation by confirmatory factor analysis with structural equation modelling. The obtained results showed that the six individual scales evaluated presented good or very good fitting indices, with saturation in goodness-of-fit index in all cases. The values of chi-square ratio were 6.921 (for health), 0.987 (environment), 0.610 (emotions) and 0.000 in the remaining cases (convenience, society, marketing). Furthermore, the fit was perfect, with saturation for all indices, in three of the six models (convenience, society and marketing). The results of this wok allowed the validation of the six scales, and the assessing of different types of factors that can influence food choices and eating behaviors, namely in the categories: health, emotions, price and availability, society and culture, environment and politics, and marketing and commercials