The systematic observation of food habits and health amongst the elderly, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, in the Asia Pacific region is increasing as reflected in the recent collective report of a number of intake and health variables in Taiwanese communities. Most studies are of Chinese and Japanese-speaking populations, with some from elsewhere in Northeast Asia (notably Korea) and...

BACKGROUND The implementation of healthy school canteen policies has been recommended as a strategy to help prevent unhealthy eating and excessive weight gain. Internationally, research suggests that schools often fail to implement practices consistent with healthy school canteen policies. Without a population wide implementation, the potential benefits of these policies will not be realised. T...

In the October issue of Childhood Obesity, David Katz called for action on so-called ‘‘kid’’ food and proposed a day of national boycott to focus attention on this issue and bring about change. This roundtable brings together experts in policy, nutrition, and pediatrics to discuss the availability of kid food and the marketing of unhealthy food to children. The panel presents strategies and ide...

In this issue we are pleased to have a contribution that delivers a thoughtful commentary on the disconnection between US agricultural and nutrition policy. In his commentary, Professor Griffin, Director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tufts University, describes the context from which current agricultural and nutrition policies emerged and the circumstances that now place t...

This discussion paper aims to review what is currently known about the role played by the informal sector in general, and informal retailers in particular, in the accessibility of food in South Africa. The review seeks to identify policy-relevant research gaps. Drawing on Statistics South Africa data, we show that the informal sector is an important source of employment, dominated by informal t...

BACKGROUND This study evaluates the changes in Spain between 2006 and 2012, of school-based policies encouraging healthy eating and the undertaking of physical activity (PA). METHODS A longitudinal study was undertaken comprising 277 representative schools from all the regions of Spain. The questionnaires were completed by the school management board. An indicator for school policies on PA wa...

A food crisis occurs when rates of hunger and malnutrition rise sharply at local, national, or global levels. This definition distinguishes a food crisis from chronic hunger, although food crises are far more likely among populations already suffering from prolonged hunger and malnutrition. A food crisis is usually set off by a shock to either supply or demand for food and often involves a sudd...

Certain developments in the agricultural and food sciences have far-reaching implications for society and the environment, which suggest the need to examine their ethical acceptability as a standard component of technology assessment. Such considerations have led to the emergence of a new academic discipline, food ethics. The present paper describes how ethical theory may be applied to the anal...

the aim of this study was investigation of the factors affecting the primary choice of consumers in food purchasing in mashhad city by applying cross section data of 201 households in 2012. in this study, 56, 30, and 14% of the consumers chose healthiness of food, price of food, and taste of food, respectively, as the primary preference in food purchase. results of applying multinomial logit mo...