Background: Food insecurity (FI) in children is linked with adverse health outcomes, particularly among Latinx youth. Study aims were twofold: (a) to assess the effect of the intervention on FI and ...(b) to evaluate if changes in FI are associated with changes in children's adiposity and cardiometabolic measures. Methods: The TX Sprouts randomized controlled trial tested the effects of a school-based gardening, nutrition, and cooking intervention in 16 elementary schools serving primarily low-income Hispanic families. Schools were randomly assigned to TX Sprouts (n = 8) or delayed intervention (control; n = 8). The following were collected at baseline and eight-months: household and child-reported FI via surveys, adiposity (BMI parameters and percent body fat) via anthropometry and bioelectrical impedance, and cardiometabolic measures (lipid panel, HbA1c and glucose) via fasting blood sample. Generalized weighted linear mixed models examined intervention effects on FI, accounting for clustering by school. Multivariable regressions assessed the relationship between changes in FI with changes in adiposity and cardiometabolic measures, adjusting for intervention, age, sex, ethnicity/ race, BMI-z score, free/reduced lunch eligibility and the respective baseline measure. Results: The analytic sample included 417 children with complete data. Change in FI was grouped as: secure to secure (n = 285), insecure to insecure (n = 49), secure to insecure (n = 61) and insecure to secure (n = 22). There was no intervention effect on change in FI. Independent of the intervention, children who became food secure had significant increases in HDL-cholesterol (ß = 1.62, p = 0.047) and significant decreases in triglycerides (ß = 14.47, p = 0.035) compared to those who stayed food insecure. Change in FI was not related to changes in adiposity or other cardiometabolic markers. Conclusions: Improvements in food security were associated with favorable changes in cardiometabolic markers, independent of intervention.
Background: Weight regain occurs in 1/3 of those achieving successful weight loss, which is often attributed to non-adherence to lifestyle interventions. Psychosocial factors, like negative affect, ...and food insecurity (FI) through episodic overeating have been proposed to impede long-term weight loss. To date, these variables have not been investigated in conjunction with dietary adherence; given the literature gap we examined the role of affect and FI on dietary adherence. Methods: Fifty participants (19 m; 49 ± 14 y; BMI = 30 ± 8) completed a 6-week outpatient dietary study including BMI measures and the USDA Household Food Security Form. Twice daily ecological momentary assessments captured real-time affect ratings and adherence. Between-person (trait-level; between participant's overall score relative to the mean score across all participants) and lagged within-person (whether each person's current affect ratings impacted future adherence) scores were calculated. Higher adherence scores (range = 0-3) denoted greater adherence. Results: Greater FI and trait-1 evel negative affect was associated with reduced adherence (p = 0.002, p < 0.0001 respectively). Higher levels of trait-level positive affect were associated with greater adherence (p < 0.0001). Negative or positive affect (lagged-within) did not predict subsequent adherence. Significant interactions between affect and FI revealed an association between higher negative affect (lagged-within) and decreased adherence only observed at low levels of FI (p = 0.04), and an association between higher negative affect (between) with decreased adherence, strengthened at greater levels of FI (-1 SD: B = -0.34, p = 0.0483; Mean: B = -0.57, p < 0.0001; +1 SD: B = -0.80, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: Trait-level affect may be more crucial for measures of momentary adherence but FI modified the relationship between negative affect and short-term adherence. Stable traits compared to momentary changes in affect may have disparate longer and shorter-term effects on overall dietary adherence.
In the era of the American Revolution, the rituals of diplomacy between the British, Patriots, and Native Americans featured gifts of food, ceremonial feasts, and a shared experience of hunger. When ...diplomacy failed, Native Americans could destroy food stores and cut off supply chains in order to assert authority. Black colonists also stole and destroyed food to ward off hunger and carve out tenuous spaces of freedom. Hunger was a means of power and a weapon of war.In No Useless Mouth, Rachel B. Herrmann argues that Native Americans and formerly enslaved black colonists ultimately lost the battle against hunger and the larger struggle for power because white British and United States officials curtailed the abilities of men and women to fight hunger on their own terms. By describing three interrelated behaviors—food diplomacy, victual imperialism, and victual warfare—the book shows that, during this tumultuous period, hunger prevention efforts offered strategies to claim power, maintain communities, and keep rival societies at bay.Herrmann shows how Native Americans, free blacks, and enslaved peoples were "useful mouths"—not mere supplicants for food, without rights or power—who used hunger for cooperation and violence, and took steps to circumvent starvation. Her wide-ranging research on black Loyalists, Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, and Western Confederacy Indians demonstrates that hunger creation and prevention were tools of diplomacy and warfare available to all people involved in the American Revolution. Placing hunger at the center of these struggles foregrounds the contingency and plurality of power in the British Atlantic during the Revolutionary Era.Thanks to generous funding from Cardiff University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellopen.org) and other repositories.
The issue of biofuels has already been much debated, but the focus to date has largely been on Latin America and deforestation - this highly original work breaks fresh ground in looking at the ...African perspective. Most African governments see biofuels as having the potential to increase agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthen their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using cutting-edge empirical case studies, this knowledge gap is addressed in a variety of chapters examining the effects of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture. In particular, 'land grabbing' and food security issues are scrutinised, both of which have become vital topics in regard to the environmental and developmental governance of African countries. A revealing book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels and land grabbing on Africa.
Food is fundamental to health and social participation, yet food poverty has increased in the global North. Adopting a realist ontology and taking a comparative case approach, Families and Food in ...Hard Times addresses the global problem of economic retrenchment and how those most affected are those with the least resources. Based on research carried out with low-income families with children aged 11-15, this timely book examines food poverty in the UK, Portugal and Norway in the decade following the 2008 financial crisis. It examines the resources to which families have access in relation to public policies, local institutions and kinship and friendship networks, and how they intersect. Through ‘thick description’ of families’ everyday lives, it explores the ways in which low income impacts upon practices of household food provisioning, the types of formal and informal support on which families draw to get by, the provision and role of school meals in children’s lives, and the constraints upon families’ social participation involving food. Providing extensive and intensive knowledge concerning the conditions and experiences of low-income parents as they endeavour to feed their families, as well as children’s perspectives of food and eating in the context of low income, the book also draws on the European social science literature on food and families to shed light on the causes and consequences of food poverty in austerity Europe.
The cover image is based on the Special Issue Parasites and the Microbiota. Cover image: Worm; Trichinella spiralis, David Linstead; Obtained from wellcomecollection.org Cover image: Bacteria; ...Proteus, SEM, David Gregory & Debbie Marshall; Obtained from: wellcomecollection.org Cover image: Food; “Africa Food Security 12 (10665035905)” by Kate Holt/AusAID; Obtained from: commons.wikimedia.org
Background: Food insecurity (FI) is associated with greater prevalence of obesity. FI was reported to reduce the effect of an intensive lifestyle intervention on weight loss. Whether FI also ...moderates weight loss induced by anti-obesity medication (AOM) is unknown. Methods: We included patients followed in our weight management clinic who answered a 2-question FI screener between 2019 and 2021 (n = 28, 82% female, age 47 ± 13 years, BMI 45 ± 9, 65% non-White). Answers to each question included "never, sometimes, often" and a score (1-3) was assigned to each. FI was defined by total score >3. Use of AOM (GLP-1 receptor agonists, phentermine and/or topiramate, bupropion and/or naltrexone) and weight-promoting medications (WPM: antipsychotics, beta-blockers, GABA agonists, insulin/insulin secretagogues) was recorded. Parametric and non-parametric statistics were used as appropriate. Significance was considered at p < 0.05. Results: Fourteen patients (50%) reported FI. Of these, 57% were prescribed an AOM, vs 79% of those without FI (p = 0.23). GLP-1 receptor agonists were the most prescribed AOM in both groups (Fl n = 7, no FI n = 9) and were prescribed after 10 ± 12 months from first encounter. Fifty percent of patients in each group were on WPM (p = 1.00). Mean follow-up was 24 ± 11 months. Median (interquartile range) weight change was -0.2% (-6.66, 6.26) in those with FI and -1.8% (-9.29, 5.69) in those without. After adjusting for use of AOM and WPM, weight loss was not different between the groups (estimated marginal means 95% confidence interval, FI: -1.8% -5.8, 2.1, vs no FI:-3.1% -7.1, 0.8, p = 0.90). In those prescribed a GLP-1 receptor agonist, median weight loss was 0.4% -5.3, 6.1 in FI patients vs 1.9% -8.3,12.1 in non-FI patients (p = 0.95). Conclusions: In conclusion, these preliminary results suggest that, although weight loss was smaller in FI patients, FI does not moderate pharmacologically induced weight loss. Further studies on larger cohorts are needed.
The Addressing Food and Nutrition Security in Developed Countries Special Issue is a collection of papers from researchers in counties with developed economies who are responding to increasing ...prevalence of food insecurity. Food insecurity is relatively hidden, and the real extent of the problem is likely to be underestimated in many of these countries. Novel methods to estimate the prevalence of food insecurity in the face of no routine measurement are presented. Population surveys highlight adverse mental health outcomes and new and emerging subgroups that are experiencing food insecurity. Understanding the factors associated with food insecurity and how people cope is extremely important when considering how best to address the problem. Readers can become familiar with the lived experience of food insecurity in some countries—essential intelligence for effective policy and interventions. The extent of food banking operations and the nature of the charitable response in some countries is also described. Country-specific research highlights the importance of understanding the cultural and external environmental context. The influence the cost of food and budgetary tools on diet and food insecurity suggests opportunities for intervention. Researchers calls for social protection and high-quality dignified responses to address this complex public health problem.
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