School lunchboxes as an opportunity for health and environmental considerations: a scoping review

Very little research has focussed on children's school lunchboxes from both a health and environment standpoint. This scoping review explores studies that considered children's lunchbox food consumption trends at school and the environmental impacts of lunchbox contents. We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed literature with a focus on lunchboxes of children in preschool or primary school settings that contained food packed from home, through the lens of food and nutrition in combination with environmental outcomes-particularly food and/or packaging waste. The review included 10 studies, with articles from Australia, USA, Spain, New Zealand and the UK. Half of them were intervention studies aiming to shift knowledge levels and attitudes of teachers, parents and children with regard to reducing packaged food choices and food waste, and improving dietary habits. Acknowledging the complexity of lunchbox packing and consumption practices, this review recommends the consideration of socio-ecological influences on children's health and sustainability behaviour, and mobilizing their pro-environmental agency.

What Influences the Sustainable Food Consumption Behaviours of University Students? A Systematic Review

Objectives: Global environmental challenges demand sustainable behaviours and policies to protect human and planetary health. We aimed to summarize the evidence about the factors related to Sustainable Food Consumption (SFC) behaviours of university students, and to propose an operational categorization of SFC behaviours.

Methods: Seven databases were searched for observational studies evaluating Sustainable Food Consumption (SFC) among university students and that reported at least one behavioural outcome measure. Qualitative synthesis was conducted, and PRISMA guidelines for reporting were followed.

Results: Out of 4,479 unique references identified, 40 studies were selected. All studies examined personal factors, while 11 out of 40 also measured social or situational factors. Except for food waste, females had higher levels of SFC behaviours, but situational factors moderated this association. Knowledge and attitudes showed mixed results. Overall, sustainable food consumers reported healthier lifestyles.

Conclusions: Healthy lifestyle of sustainable food consumers suggests possible synergies between human health and sustainability in terms of motivations for food choice. Moderation effects of social and situational factors on personal factors reveal opportunities to design and examine the effects of choice architecture interventions.

Physical Activity in the Daily Life of Adolescents: Factors Affecting Healthy Choices from a Discrete Choice Experiment

Physical activity improves peoples’ well-being and can help in preventing weight gain, obesity, and related non-communicable diseases. Promoting healthy behaviors in the daily travels and transport choices of adolescents is very important in early establishing healthy habits that imply routine physical activity. For designing and developing effective strategies, it is relevant to study adolescents’ preferences for physical activity and what factors in the social and environmental contexts affect their preferences. The paper investigates these aspects by means of a discrete choice experiment, using data from more than 4300 16–17 year-old adolescents in Italy. The results show that adolescents generally prefer walking for long time alone. However, females prefer cycling, while adolescents from lower educated families prefer motorized means of transport. Environmental factors affect the adolescents’ preferences: living nearby a green area is associated with more active and healthier choices in their short daily travels. Conversely, adolescents living closer to an industrial or high traffic area prefer to use motorized vehicles. Such findings have been discussed and policy implications presented, in order to support policymakers in designing cross-sectoral policies to promote healthy choices related to physical activity in adolescence.

A downturn or a window of opportunity? How Danish and French parents perceive changes in healthy eating in the transition to parenthood

Alarming childhood obesity rates call for research into the factors that influence a child's environment. Although parents have a large influence on children's eating behaviours, surprisingly little research has explored parental healthy eating patterns. We conducted face-to-face interviews with parents of young children (up to 4 years old) living in Denmark (n = 16) and in France (n = 14) to provide insights into how the transition to parenthood affects the perceived healthfulness of eating behaviours. A problem-centred, Life-Course approach was employed, exploring the topics of interest from the perspective of the participants, and then interpreting these on the background of Social Cognitive Theory. From a cross-cultural sample of mostly well-educated parents living in couples, we found that the transition to parenthood represents a turning point for eating behaviour. Marked differences in dietary changes were perceived across four stages: 1) pregnancy, 2) first months with the baby, 3) complementary feeding and 4) child shares family meals. The findings point to an opposite cross-country perception of the impact of parenthood on food behaviours, and to the idea of what we called an "equalizing effect" on individuals' diet, where having a child triggered "unhealthy" eaters to consider dietary improvements while it imposed challenges to "healthy" eaters to maintain their satisfactory food habits. Contrasting differences on perceived behaviour change mainly appeared in terms of food ethics concern, meat consumption, cooking enjoyment, dietary diversity and sugar consumption. The proposition that low food-health-oriented individuals become healthier and (some) more environmentally conscious, reveals an opportunity for effective strategies and public health messages targeting health and food-ethics behaviour. Nevertheless, findings point to a need to consider individualized health support, addressing parental self-care, physiological changes, stress and negative emotions of early parenthood.

Social movement involvement and healthy diet and activity behaviors among US adults

Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, namely poor diet and inadequate physical activity, significantly contribute to poor health and obesity risk, which in turn impact chronic illness outcomes. A possible approach to improving these health behaviors and subsequent outcomes is to capitalize on the theorized link between social movement involvement and overlapping health behaviors. Social movement involvement may be a viable stealth intervention for health, utilizing intrinsic motivators to improve health without an explicit focus on changing health behavior. Thus, the current study explored the links between social movement involvement and diet and physical activity. Two samples from a college population (N = 196) and the general population (N = 195) participated in an online survey, which included measures of social movement involvement, social movement-related health behaviors and dietary intake and physical activity. After controlling for known covariates, social movement-related health behaviors mediated the relationship between level of social movement involvement and fruit and vegetable consumption, whole grain intake and average daily physical activity in both samples. These findings suggest that health behaviors associated with social movement involvement may be an important mechanism in promoting health among social movement members and that the model holds across adult populations. This research adds to existing literature on stealth interventions as a viable means of improving important behavioral health components linked with obesity and chronic disease and supports social movement involvement as a potential form of stealth intervention.

'Not to Be Harsh but Try Less to Relate to 'the Teens' and You'll Relate to Them More': Co-Designing Obesity Prevention Text Messages with Adolescents

Text messages remain a preferred way for adolescents to communicate, and recent evidence suggests adolescents would like access to digital healthcare options. However, there is limited evidence for text messages to engage adolescent populations in obesity prevention behaviors. We aimed to co-design a bank of text messages that are evidence-based, acceptable, and engaging for adolescents. An established iterative mixed methods process, consisting of three phases, was used to develop the text message program. The first bank of 145 text messages was drafted based on current evidence, behavior change techniques, and input from researchers and health professionals. A survey was then administered to adolescents and professionals for review of text message content, usefulness, understanding, and age-appropriateness. An adolescent research assistant collaborated with the research team on all three phases. Forty participants (25 adolescents and 15 professionals) reviewed the initial bank of 145 text messages. On average, all reviewers agreed the text messages were easy to understand (13.6/15) and useful (13.1/15). In total, 107 text messages were included in the final text message bank to support behavior change and prevent obesity. This study may guide other researchers or health professionals who are seeking to engage adolescents in the co-design of health promotion or intervention content. Effectiveness of the text message program will be tested in a randomized controlled trial.

Global warming and obesity: a systematic review

Global warming and the obesity epidemic are two unprecedented challenges mankind faces today. A literature search was conducted in the PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCO and Scopus for articles published until July 2017 that reported findings on the relationship between global warming and the obesity epidemic. Fifty studies were identified. Topic-wise, articles were classified into four relationships - global warming and the obesity epidemic are correlated because of common drivers (n = 21); global warming influences the obesity epidemic (n = 13); the obesity epidemic influences global warming (n = 13); and global warming and the obesity epidemic influence each other (n = 3). We constructed a conceptual model linking global warming and the obesity epidemic - the fossil fuel economy, population growth and industrialization impact land use and urbanization, motorized transportation and agricultural productivity and consequently influences global warming by excess greenhouse gas emission and the obesity epidemic by nutrition transition and physical inactivity; global warming also directly impacts obesity by food supply/price shock and adaptive thermogenesis, and the obesity epidemic impacts global warming by the elevated energy consumption. Policies that endorse deployment of clean and sustainable energy sources, and urban designs that promote active lifestyles, are likely to alleviate the societal burden of global warming and obesity.