Women of reproductive age living in resource-poor settings are at high risk of inadequate micronutrient intakes when diets lack diversity and are dom

Objective: This study assesses whether a simple count of food items and food groups can predict the nutritional adequacy of the diet in an economically poor country. Design: A three-day weighed record of children. Setting: Koutiala town, in Southeastern Mali. Subjects: Seventy-seven children, 13–58 months of age. One child was excluded owing to an extraordinarily low food variety. Intervention: The study was conducted in April–August 1995. Data from this study were used to create two different indices: Food Variety Score (FVS), a simple count of food items, and Dietary Diversity Score (DDS), a count of food groups. Mean Adequacy Ratio (MAR) was calculated as an indicator for nutrient adequacy, and used to validate FVS and DDS. Results: Mean (s.d.) FVS was 20.5 (3.8) and mean (s.d.) DDS was 5.8 (1.1). A positive correlation was found both between FVS and MAR (Pearson 0.33, P<0.001) and DDS and MAR (Pearson 0.39, P<0.001). With cut-off points for FVS at 23 and for DDS at 6, the indices have high ability to identify those with a nutritionally inadequate diet. MAR increased with increasing FVS and DDS. FVS needs to be at least 15 or DDS at least 5 to give a satisfactory MAR. Conclusion: Although a simple count of food items or food groups cannot give a full picture of the adequacy of the nutrient intake, the results from this study show that the food scores can give a fairly good assessment of the nutritional adequacy of the diet, particularly if combined. Such indicators are important for identification of vulnerable groups in areas where people normally eat from a shared bowl, which makes detailed dietary intake studies difficult, time consuming and expensive. Sponsorship: The Norwegian Universities’ Committee for Development Research (NUFU), the Norwegian Research Council and the Nordic Africa Institute funded the project.

Summary: Food environments are directly linked to diets and health outcomes such as overweight, obesity, and noncommunicable diseases. The digitalization of food environments is becoming a central issue in public health, yet little is known about this emerging field. We performed a systematic scoping review to map the research on the digital food environment and investigate how the eight dimensions of the food environment, according to an established framework (availability, prices, vendor and product properties, marketing and regulation, accessibility, affordability, convenience, and desirability), might be shifting in the context of a digital society. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, and Web of Science for studies published between 2000 and 2019, using search terms covering digital technology and food environment, which yielded 13,580 unique records. Our analysis of 357 studies shows that digitalization is taking place in all dimensions of the food environment, and enabling the emergence of new forms of buying and selling food, such as online grocery shopping and online food delivery, which may be changing availability of foods and affecting the physical distance to shops and time allocated for shopping. Systematic reviews identified indicated that digital food marketing and social media can influence food choices, preferences and consumption. Our findings suggest that digital and physical food environments are interconnected and influencing one another, but the impact of the digital on health and nutrition is yet unclear.

A systematic review was conducted to identify all studies that were published between 1988 and 2008 reporting micronutrient intakes of women in resou

Background: Severe iodine deficiency in pregnancy has major effects on child neurodevelopment, but less is known about the potential consequences of