A new study has reportedly concluded that “the more a child is familiar with logos and other images from fast-food restaurants, sodas and not-so-healthy snack food brands, the more likely a child is to be overweight or obese.” T. Bettina Cornwell, “Children’s knowledge of packaged and fast food brands and their BMI: Why the relationship matters for policy makers,” Appetite, July 2014. According to a recent press release, researchers found that among two groups of children aged 3 to 5 years, the preschoolers best able to match pictures of food items, packaging and cartoon characters with the corresponding logos were more likely to have higher body mass indexes (BMIs) than those with little knowledge of food and beverage brands. In particular, the study noted that only in one group of children did exercise appear to mitigate this association. “The inconsistency across studies tells us that physical activity should not be…
Category Archives Scientific/Technical Items
A study published this week by researchers associated with the Zurich, Switzerland-based Food Packaging Forum has sounded the alarm about the number of allegedly hazardous substances contained in food packaging or those that may contaminate food during production, processing, storage and transportation. Birgit Geueke, et al., “Food contact substances and chemicals of concern: a comparison of inventories,” Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A, published online July 7, 2014. The researchers reportedly compared the inventories of three food contact material (FCM) databases—the Pew Charitable Trusts’ list of legal direct and indirect food additives, the EU-wide positive list for plastic FCMs and the European Food Standard Authority’s 2011 non-plastics FCM substances list—with the Substitute It Now! (SIN) list 2.1 and the TEDX database of endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Ultimately identifying 175 substances “with hazardous properties,” they found “(1) gaps in the regulation of FCMs and (2) how knowledge from different authorities and organizations could…
A University of Oxford study has apparently found that a salad with its ingredients arranged to resemble Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract Painting Number 201 tasted better to subjects than salads with the ingredients tossed together in the middle of or laid out neatly on their plates. Charles Michel et al., “A taste of Kandinsky: assessing the influence of the artistic visual presentation of food on the dining experience,” Flavour 3:7 (June 20, 2014). Researchers prepared ingredients for salads, arranging them in three different ways—“regular,” “neat” and “art-inspired”—and then asked 60 participants to eat and rate the salads. Each salad was prepared with the same 30 ingredients in the same manner except that the sauce was distributed throughout the salad for the “regular,” in an orderly pile for the “neat,” and in artistic flourishes to match Kandinsky’s Painting Number 201 in the “art-inspired.” Researchers compared questionnaires that the subjects completed before and after…
A recent viewpoint article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) discusses an alternative theory of chronic overeating as “a manifestation rather than the primary cause of obesity.” David Ludwig and Mark Friedman, “Increasing Adiposity: Consequence or Cause of Overeating?,” JAMA, June 2014. Authored by New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center Boston Children’s Hospital Director David Ludwig and Nutrition Science Initiative Vice President of Research Mark Friedman, the article discusses the physiological and genetic mechanisms that may contribute to obesity, arguing that “a focus on diet composition, not total calories, may best facilitate weight loss.” In particular, Ludwig and Friedman not only point to previous studies claiming that the body adapts its metabolic responses “to defend baseline body weight,” but argue that insulin disorders “highlight the potential influence of metabolic fuel concentration on body weight regulation.” They also note that, contrary to a calorie-centric view of obesity,…
A recent study has allegedly linked higher red meat intake in early adulthood to an increased breast cancer risk, raising questions about how dietary habits adopted before midlife can affect health outcomes. Maryam Farvid, et al., “Dietary protein sources in early adulthood and breast cancer incidence: prospective cohort study,” BMJ, June 2014. In addition to analyzing food questionnaire data from 88,803 premenopausal women ages 26-25 who were enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study II, researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health documented 2,830 cases of breast cancer during 20 years of follow-up. Based on this data, they concluded that not only were higher intakes of total red meat associated with an increased risk of breast cancer overall, but that “higher intakes of poultry, fish, eggs, legumes, and nuts were not related to breast cancer overall.“ “So far, studies have suggested no significant association between red meat intake and breast cancer,”…
A recent review of literature on the impact of the economic environment on obesity has purportedly concluded that “effective economic measures policies to curb obesity remain elusive.” Roland Sturm and Ruopeng An, “Obesity and Economic Environments,” CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, May 2014. Funded by the National Institutes of Health and RAND Corp., the study finds that U.S. obesity rates have continued to rise across all sociodemographic groups and geographic areas despite “increases in leisure time (rather than increased work hours), increased fruit and vegetable availability (rather than a decline in healthier foods), and increased exercise uptake.” Calling into question “some widely held, but incorrect, beliefs,” the study’s authors suggest that decreasing prices have played a primary role in food consumption patterns. Noting that consumers today spend only one-tenth of their disposable income on food, the researchers report that taxes on low-nutritional foods and other large price interventions “could…
Researchers in the Netherlands have reportedly identified a link between computer games with food advertisements and higher calorie consumption in children, especially among those identified as impulsive. Frans Folkvord et al., “Impulsivity, ‘Advergames,’ and Food Intake,” Pediatrics, May 5, 2014. The study of 261 children aged seven to 10 assessed them for impulsivity, and then they played a matching game with branded content—an “advergame”— of either a candy brand or a toy brand. While the children were allowed to eat candy during play, half of each group playing each game was told that they would be rewarded for refraining from eating. The researchers observed the children for five minutes and measured their food intake. Overall, the children playing the game with the candy brand ate more than the group playing the toy-branded game, but most of the children who were promised rewards for not eating the candy consumed fewer calories…
A recent study by Purdue University scientists has purportedly concluded that the amounts of artificial food colors found in many popular U.S. foods are much higher than previously thought, and children—the target market for the most heavily dyed foods—could be consuming 100 to 200 mg of artificial color in a day, well over the 30 mg that has allegedly been shown to contribute to behavioral disorders such as attention deficit hyperactive disorder. Although manufacturers are required to disclose whether a food contains artificial coloring, the law does not require that they disclose how much of each color is used, and, according to the study, the amounts of artificial coloring in foods has increased more than five-fold since 1950. “In the 1970s and 1980s, many studies were conducted giving children 26 mg of a mixture of dyes,” said study author Laura Stevens. “Only a few children seemed to react to the…
Researchers at Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences have purportedly found that edible films made from pullulan—a transparent polymer produced by the fungus Aureobasidium pulluns, silver nanoparticles, zinc oxide, and oregano and rosemary essential oils—can inhibit foodborne pathogens on meat products. Mohamed K. Morsy, et al., “Incorporation of Essential Oils and Nanoparticles in Pullulan Films to Control Foodborne Pathogens on Meat and Poultry Products,” Journal of Food Science, April 2014. Observing that the films inhibited the growth of four pathogens: Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella Typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes, and E. coli O157:H7—to varying degrees, the researchers concluded that they could form “the basis of a useful packaging tool to improve the safety of meat products.” According to Penn State University Food Science Professor Catherine Cutter, who co-authored the study, the edible films are a “novel but effective way” to deliver antimicrobial agents to meats because the bacteria-killing action lasts longer than the liquid applications traditionally used. “The results from…
Harvard researchers have found that staple crops grown in environments with levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) similar to the levels expected in 2050 had less zinc, iron and protein than crops grown at current CO2 levels. Samuel S. Myers et al., “Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition,” Nature, May 2014. The researchers conducted field trials of 41 strains of wheat, rice, maize, and soybeans grown in seven locations on three continents, elevating the CO2 levels from the current average of about 380-390 parts per million (ppm) to the expected levels in 2050 of 545-585 ppm. The wheat, rice and maize grown at the higher CO2 levels each had about 5 to 10 percent less zinc, iron and protein, while soybeans lost similar amounts of zinc and iron but maintained current levels of protein. The precise biological reason for the declines remains unclear, but researchers reportedly said that the nutrient reduction could…
