Digital games: possibilities and limitations: the Spore Game case

This paper discusses the educational value of digital games, its advantages and limitations. In order to present the educational potential of digital games, we proceed to the analysis and evaluation of a game, which was recently published by Electronic Arts Inc., Spore, a game that reached the market surrounded by controversy, due to the evolution of the cells that settle its universe. This game presents defensible characteristics regardless of the underlying moral bias, offering a strong educational potential and reveling itself as a valuable educational resource, as it promotes active, autonomous and participated learning processes.Universidade do Minho. Centro de Investigação em Educação (CIEd

Perceptions towards a healthy diet among a sample of university people in Portugal

Purpose: A healthy diet has been recognized as one of the most important factors associated with the maintenance of human health as well as to help preventing the development of some chronic diseases. Therefore, this work aimed at studying the perceptions of a sample of university people regarding a healthy diet. Methodology: It was undertaken a descriptive cross-sectional study on a non-probabilistic sample of 382 participants. The data was collected among a sample of Portuguese university people and measured if people´s perceptions were compliant with a healthy diet. Findings: The results revealed that the participants’ perceptions were, in general, compliant with a healthy diet (scores between 0.5 and 1.5, on a scale from -2 to +2). However, were found significant differences between age groups (p=0.004), with a higher average score for young adults, and also between groups with different levels of education (p=0.025), with a higher score for university degree. The variable chronic diseases also showed significant differences (p=0.017), so that people who did not have any chronic diseases obtained a higher score. Originality/Value: This study is considered important because it provides evidences about the relation between nutrition knowledge and the perceptions towards a healthy diet. The study allowed concluding that the participants were aware about some nutritional aspects of their diets and, therefore, their perceptions were compliant with a healthy diet. This finding is very relevant, because it could be a support for health policy initiatives directed at promoting healthy eating behaviours.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

INFLUENCE OF EMOTIONAL DETERMINANTS ON THE FOOD CHOICES OF THE PORTUGUESE

Food choices are influenced by many factors, such as emotional. When people eat, driven by emotional factors, they often lose control, which may lead to eating disorders. Therefore, this work aimed at studying the influence that emotional determinants had on people’s food choices. It was undertaken a descriptive cross-sectional study by means of a questionnaire on a non-probabilistic sample of 1314 participants. The data was collected among a sample of the Portuguese population and measured if people´s food choices were influenced by emotional determinants.The results revealed that the participants’ food choices were, in general, slightly influenced by emotional determinants (mean scores between –0.5 and 0.5, on a scale from –2 to +2). There were found significant differences in all of the variables under study. The participants, who already experienced an episode of binge-eating, were the ones that obtained the highest mean score (0.63±0.79), meaning that in this case those participants’ food choices were influenced by emotional determinants. These results support the premise that emotional determinants are influenced by the characteristics of each individual and also the existence of a positive association between emotional eating and the presence of eating disorders, especially, binge-eating

As fontes de informação e as perceções sobre uma alimentação saudável numa amostra da comunidade universitária

Este trabalho pretendeu avaliar a influência das diferentes fontes de informação nas perceções sobre uma alimentação saudável. Para tal, foi efetuado um inquérito por questionário a uma amostra de 381 participantes pertencentes à comunidade universitária, incluindo alunos, professores e restantes colaboradores. Os dados mostraram que, independentemente da fonte de informação e da frequência com que era utilizada, as perceções dos participantes eram compatíveis com uma alimentação saudável. A fonte de informação privilegiada foi a Internet, tendo a família e os amigos revelado ser também importantes. Contudo, é fundamental continuarem a ser desenvolvidas estratégias que permitam aumentar o conhecimento sobre esta temática.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Development of a Questionnaire to Assess Knowledge and Perceptions about Edible Insects

Edible insects (EI) have been consumed as traditional foods in many parts of the globe, but in other regions, they are not readily accepted, particularly in Western countries. However, because EI are suggested to constitute a more sustainable protein food as compared with other sources of animal protein, they can be considered a future food that could help mitigate hunger and malnutrition. Additionally, new gastronomic trends are already targeting this area for exploring new potentialities. The objective of this work was to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess consumers’ perceptions and knowledge about EI in seven different domains: D1. Culture and Tradition, D2. Gastronomic Innovation and Gourmet Kitchen, D3. Environment and Sustainability, D4. Economic and Social Aspects, D5. Commercialization and Marketing, D6. Nutritional Aspects and D7. Health Effects. The 64 items were subjected to item analysis and reliability analysis for validation, and factor analysis was also conducted to identify a grouping structure. The results validated all the items of the seven subscales with high values of Cronbach’s alpha (α = 0.732 for D1, α = 0.795 for D2, α = 0.882 for D3, α = 0.742 for D4, α = 0.675 for D5, α = 0.799 for D6 and α = 0.788 for D7). However, by eliminating 17 items, the final values of the alpha increased in all subscales. Factor analysis with extraction by principal component analysis with varimax rotation extracted 14 factors that explained, in total, 65% of the variance, although the first two factors were the most important (35.7% variance explained). In conclusion, the confirmed usefulness of the questionnaire has been hereby validated for assessing consumer perceptions of and knowledge about EI.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Motivations for Consumption of Edible Insects: A Systematic Review

The consumption of edible insects (EI) is traditional in many parts of the world, but not in others. In fact, despite globalization and the multiple advantages pointed out about the consumption of EI, there are still many countries where entomophagy is seen with disgust and aversion. This systematic review aimed to examine the motivations that influence the consumption of EI in diverse cultures and understand if there are differences between Western countries (WC) and insect-eating countries (IEC). It further evaluated whether the degree of acceptability was influenced by the form of consumption of the insects (eating whole insects or foods containing insects). This literature review was conducted in November 2021 within three databases, Web of Science, PubMed and Scopus, according to the Preferred Reporting of Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis and using PRISMA directives. From a total of 245 studies, 31 were selected to be included in this review, based on the inclusion criteria defined: only original research articles, from 2010 or beyond, and written in English. The results indicated that the main motivations that determine the consumption of EI are related to gender, age, sustainability, nutritional value, sensory attributes, tradition/culture, food neophobia, disgust and familiarity/past experiences. Moreover, whereas in IEC, there is a greater focus on factors related to sensory attributes, availability, affordability and preferences, in WC, there is a bigger emphasis on determinants such as nutritional value, sustainability, benefits, familiarity/past experience, tradition/culture, food neophobia and disgust. Finally, it was observed that people in WC are more willing to accept food products containing insects rather than the whole insect, which is one of the most promising points to be addressed in the future. Overall, this review highlights that there are numerous factors influencing the consumption of edible insects, and differences between WC and IEC are clear in what concerns the motivations of consumers. Hence, targeting market segments and consumers’ characteristics has to be present when designing strategies to incentivize the consumption of EI in WC as a part of a global strategy for sustainability of food systems.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Avaliação Externa da Qualidade em Microbiologia de Areias de Praias - Estudo Piloto

As areias das praias contêm por vezes microrganismos nocivos para a saúde humana, frequentemente em superiores às que existem na água. Atualmente (Brandão et al. 2002; Sabino et al. 2012; Solo-Gabriele et al. 2015) não existe regulamentação para a amostragem, análise e apreciação da qualidade microbiológica de areias. O Programa Nacional de Avaliação Externa da Qualidade (PNAEQ), inserido no Departamento de Epidemiologia do Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr. Ricardo Jorge, Portugal, implementou em 2015 um ensaio piloto no âmbito da avaliação externa da qualidade microbiológica de areias. Um dos principais objetivos é a harmonização da metodologia utilizada nos laboratórios, para avaliar a quantificação e identificação de microrganismos indicadores, quer bacterianos quer fúngicos, nas areias de praias, através da avaliação do desempenho dos resultados interlaboratoriais

The EATMOT Project: Preliminary Results of the study about motivations for food choices in 16 countries

Eating is not only determined by physiology, but also by many other factors that interact in a complex way to shape individual eating habits. Hence, the aim of this project is to undertake a study about the different psychic and social motivations that determine people’s eating patterns, either in relation to their choices or eating habits. To do this, factors linked to food choices will be evaluated in the following main areas: health motivations; economic factors; emotional aspects; cultural influences; marketing and commercials or environmental concerns. The study is based on a questionnaire that was prepared purposely for the project, and therefore adequate to evaluate the aspects that determine the objectives highlighted. The study is coordinated by the principal researcher Raquel Guiné from CI&DETS Research Centre and the range is multinational, including different countries so as to gather information on a trans-frontier scale. The countries involved are: Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal (Coordinator), Serbia, Slovenia, Romania and United States of America. This particular study investigated the influence of sociodemographic factors on the six types of eating motivations previously referred. This is a longitudinal observational study carried out on a non-probabilistic sample with 11960 participants residing in the 16 countries afore mentioned. Analysis of the data was performed using t-test for independent samples or ANOVA with Post-Hoc Tukey HSD. Neural network models were also created, to determine the relative influence of each input on each output variable. The results showed that factors such as age, marital status, country, living environment, level of education or professional area significantly influenced all of the studied types of eating motivations. The modelling through neural networks indicated a considerable variability in the food choices, but still it was possible to identify some trends, like for example that the strongest positive factor determining health motivations was age, while for emotional motivations was living environment, and for economic & availability motivations was gender. On the other hand, country revealed a high positive influence for the social & cultural as well as for environmental & political and also for marketing & commercial motivations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The motivations that define eating patterns in some Mediterranean countries

Purpose: This study is part of the international project EATMOT, designed to investigate several issues related to food choice and consumption patterns in different countries, including health related factors; economic and availability aspects; emotional determinants; social, cultural and religious influences; marketing and advertising campaigns and finally environmental concerns. Methodology: The present study was based on a questionnaire that was exclusively prepared for the project, and which was applied to collect data in different countries, in particular Croatia, Egypt, Italy, Greece and Portugal, which are typically associated with the Mediterranean diet. Findings: The results obtained allowed, in general, to conclude that in all 5 countries the motivations related to health as well as environment & politics were the more relevant to determine people’s eating habits (scores varying from 0.3 to 0.7). Women were more influenced by eating motivations than men, and people with moderate exercise were more susceptible to health and environmental motivations and less to emotional, social or marketing motivations (p <0.001 in all cases). It was also observed that people who adopted a special diet were more prone to eating motivations and that the emotional motivations were more pronounced in people with eating disorders (p <0.001). Finally, people without chronic diseases or allergies were even more influenced by health motivations than those who actually suffered from these health problems (p <0.001 in both cases). Originality/Value: This work is important due to the multinational coverage, thus allowing to evaluate the most relevant factors that influenced the food choices of the populations around the Mediterranean Sea, sharing the common link to the Mediterranean Diet. The study allowed concluding that, in general, the food choices were primarily determined by health factors, and also by concerns related to the environment and sustainability as well as by political influences.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Avaliação Externa da Qualidade Laboratorial em Microbiologia de Areias de praias – Quantificação de bactérias

As areias das praias contêm microrganismos nocivos para a saúde humana, frequentemente em concentrações maiores do que na água. Atualmente, não existem normas internacionais para a amostragem, análise e apreciação da qualidade microbiológica de areias. O Programa Nacional de Avaliação Externa da Qualidade inserido no Departamento de Epidemiologia do Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Portugal realizou em 2016 o 1º Programa em microbiologia de areias. O objetivo deste trabalho é a avaliação laboratorial do desempenho dos participantes no Programa de Microbiologia de Areias, quantificação de bactérias, baseado na proposta Portuguesa.N/