What works to improve school lunch nutritional quality - legislation or self-audit? Medium-term results from Sweden

BackgroundPoor monitoring and evaluation leads to a lack of evidence regarding what works in terms of improving school meal quality. Sweden has a long-standing policy of universal free school meals but updated legislation regarding nutritional quality came into effect in 2011. To coincide with this, we built a fully automated web-based self-audit tool for schools, called School Food Sweden, in order to i) establish a national database on overall meal quality, covering six domains, and ii) help schools and municipalities improve, based on the implementation strategy of audit and feedback. We have previously examined the pre- and post-legislation period. In this paper we describe changes in one domain – nutritional quality – in the years since the new legislation and examine if repeated use of the tool was associated with improvements.MethodsPrimary schools in Sweden self-selected to use the tool between March 2012 and July 2019 and audited a four-week lunch menu. Date of audit, number of audits per school (1-9), how often schools accessed their feedback (% of times) and school characteristics were noted. Factors associated with meeting nutritional criteria were examined using variance weighted least squares regression and logistic regression, using both repeated cross-sectional and longitudinal design.ResultsAlmost half of all ca 4800 primary schools in Sweden signed up to the tool. Nutritional quality was audited by 1500 schools at least once. Repeated cross-sectional analyses showed the proportion of all schools meeting the criteria increased significantly between 2012/13 and 2018/19 (from 11% to 34%). For all schools, each extra audit completed increased the odds of meeting nutritional criteria by 1.30 (CI 1.20-1.41), controlling for region and time since the introduction of legislation. In a longitudinal analysis (schools with repeat audits, n=774), both number of audits and the frequency of accessing previous feedback reports were predictors of meeting the nutritional criteria (OR 2.02, CI 1.23-3.31), even after adjusting for time since the introduction of legislation and number of days since the previous audit.ConclusionsBoth legislation and self-audit with automatic feedback appear effective in helping schools to improve school meal quality. Self-audit may be an essential complement to legislation, or a promising alternative in settings where regulation is not an option.

Restaurant Review Classification Using Naives Bayes Model

Numerous restaurants fight for the best quality for clients in the increasingly competitive restaurant sector. A restaurant is a business that demands more attention to customer care through continually enhancing customer service. The situation has an effect on the restaurant’s brand image, which is shaped by whether or not consumers are happy. Restaurant patrons may choose to benefit from others’ experiences by evaluating restaurants based on a range of factors, including meal quality, service, ambience, discounts, and deservingness. Users may leave reviews and ratings of companies and services, or just comment on other reviews. From one standpoint, bad (negative) reviews may influence how potential consumers make purchasing decisions. Sentiment analysis is a technique for determining the emotional content of a text that may be used to evaluate product/service reviews. Additionally, we may categorise them as positive or negative emotions. Understanding how the general public feels about various entities and products enables more relevant marketing, recommendation systems, and market trend research. Prepossessed data is collected, and then categorization is performed using a confusion matrix. This study enables us to create a report on the public’s perception of a particular restaurant. We developed a machine learning model and trained it using Bernoulli’s Naive Bayes classifier. Additionally, we evaluated the classifier’s performance on the test sample using evaluation matrices such as prediction, accuracy, recall, and F1 score. Customer review research has a significant influence on a business’s growth strategy.

Food Consumption Determinants and Barriers for Healthy Eating at the Workplace—A University Setting

Background: A wide variety of social, cultural and economic factors may influence dietary patterns. This work aims to identify the main determinants of food consumption and barriers for healthy eating at the workplace, in a university setting. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted with 533 participants. Data were obtained through the application of a self-administered questionnaire that included socio-demographic information, food consumption determinants and the main perceived barriers for healthy eating at the workplace. Results: The respondents identified “price” (22.5%), “meal quality” (20.7%), and “location/distance” (16.5%). For women, the determinant “availability of healthy food options” was more important than for men (p < 0.001). The food consumption determinants at the workplace most referred to by respondents were related to the nutritional value. Smell, taste, appearance and texture, and good value for money, were also considered important for choosing food at the workplace. Respondents referred to work commitments and lack of time as the main barriers for healthy eating at the workplace. Conclusions: Identification of determinants involved in food consumption, and the barriers for healthy eating, may contribute to a better definition of health promotion initiatives at the workplace aiming to improve nutritional intake.

Development and validation of a meal quality index with applications to NHANES 2005-2014

The Meal Balance Index (MBI) assesses the nutritional quality and balance of meals. It is a score between 0 and 100 that takes into account both shortfall and excess nutrients, adjusted for the energy content of the meal. In the present study the score was applied to 147849 meals reported in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) 2005-2014 in order to evaluate its validity and compare against exemplary meals designed as part of 24h diets that meet US dietary guidelines. Meals from exemplary menu plans developed by nutrition experts scored on average 76±14 (mean ± standard deviation) whereas those of NHANES participants scored 45±14. Scores of breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, considered jointly as independent variables, were moderately but positively and significantly associated with the Healthy Eating Index (Pearson correlation 0.6). MBI scores were significantly associated with the density of positive micronutrients (e.g. Vit A, Vit C) and favorable food groups (e.g. fruits, whole grains) not directly included in the MBI algorithm. The MBI is a valid tool to assess the nutritional quality of meals reported in the US population and if applied to culinary recipe websites could potentially help users to understand which meals are nutritionally balanced. Choice of more balanced individual meals can guide healthier cooking and eating.

The Use of Genetic and Gene Technologies in Shaping Modern Rapeseed Cultivars (Brassica napus L.)

Since their domestication, Brassica oilseed species have undergone progressive transformation allied with the development of breeding and molecular technologies. The canola (Brassica napus) crop has rapidly expanded globally in the last 30 years with intensive innovations in canola varieties, providing for a wider range of markets apart from the food industry. The breeding efforts of B. napus, the main source of canola oil and canola meal, have been mainly focused on improving seed yield, oil quality, and meal quality along with disease resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, and herbicide resistance. The revolution in genetics and gene technologies, including genetic mapping, molecular markers, genomic tools, and gene technology, especially gene editing tools, has allowed an understanding of the complex genetic makeup and gene functions in the major bioprocesses of the Brassicales, especially Brassica oil crops. Here, we provide an overview on the contributions of these technologies in improving the major traits of B. napus and discuss their potential use to accomplish new improvement targets.

Why nutritious meals matter in school

The Trump Administration’s rollbacks in nutritional standards for school meals have been the subject of much criticism and the basis for a lawsuit. Research into food insecurity and public school meal quality shows that food security and high nutritional standards are essential to any efforts to improve both school equity and student performance. Eleanor Thompson describes this research and makes recommendations for halting proposed rollbacks and providing more durable protections for the regulations that exist.