Obesity is a major burden on healthcare systems. Simple, cost effective interventions that encourage healthier behaviours are required. The present study evaluated the efficacy of a salience nudge for promoting a change in milk selection from full-cream to low-fat (lower calorie) in the kitchen of a university-based research institute that provided full-cream and low-fat milk free of charge. Mi...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Childhood metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a risk factor for adverse outcomes later in life. Our goal was to identify temporal trends among US adolescents in the severity of MetS, its individual components, and factors related to diet and physical activity. METHODS We analyzed 5117 participants aged 12 to 19 from NHANES. We used regression analysis of individual waves of...

The last few decades have seen fundamental changes in food consumption patterns and life styles around the world. These changes have brought about a rapid rise in overall calorie intakes, increased consumption of livestock products as well as a shift towards increasing sedentariness. Increased food consumption and lower calorie expenditures have resulted in a rapid increase in the prevalence of...

A number of papers have empirically investigated the rational addiction model proposed by Becker and Murphy (1988) by using data on different harmful drugs, like cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, opium, cocaine; but also activities independent of a biological or pharmaceutical dependency have been analysed, such as gambling, calorie consumption, news, arts, and cinema. The purpose of this paper is...

Sugars have a long history of safe use in foods. Placed on the Food and Drug Administration’s list of foods that are ‘‘generally recognized as safe’’ in 1958, sugars and the health aspects of sugar consumption continue to be evaluated. Recent research has focused on several potential sugars and health relationships, sugar consumption and nutritional quality of the diet, recommendations for suga...

THE AGING PROCESS RESULTS in an accelerated decline of functional capacity, but the mechanisms behind this decline are unclear (21, 22). The free radical theory of aging proposes that mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) causes an increase in cellular damage with age (9, 10). This theory has gained strong support because it is consistent with many of the processes and degen...

Repetitive cycles of palatable food access and chronic calorie restriction alter feeding behaviors and forebrain neural systems. The purpose of this study was to determine the behavioral, endocrine, and meal-related hindbrain neural activation in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats exposed to a binge-access feeding schedule. The binge-access schedule consisted of repeated twice-per-week episodes of ...

High mammographic density (MD) is one of the main risk factors for development of breast cancer. To date, however, relatively few studies have evaluated the association between MD and diet. In this cross-sectional study, we assessed the association between MD (measured using Boyd's semiquantitative scale with five categories: <10%, 10-25%, 25-50%, 50-75% and >75%) and diet (measured using a foo...