The aim of this study was to examine the validity of the English version of the PREvencion con DIetaMEDiterranea (PREDIMED) 14-item Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS), a brief questionnaire assessing adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet), which was used in the PREDIMED trial for assessment and immediate feedback. This instrument (MEDAS) was administered to 96 adults with a high cardiovascular risk (66% women, mean age 68.3 ± 6.0 years), recruited from general practices in Bristol, UK. Participants then completed a 3-day estimated food record, and the MEDAS was administered again one month later. A MedDiet score (range = 0–14) was calculated from the MEDAS’ administrations and food record to assess concurrent validity and test-retest reliability. Predictive validity was assessed by examining the association of the MEDAS-derived score with cardiometabolic risk factors and dietary intakes derived from the food records. The MEDAS-derived MedDiet score was higher by 1.47 points compared to food records (5.47 vs.4.00, p < 0.001), correlated moderately with the record-derived score (r = 0.50, p < 0.001; ICC = 0.53, p < 0.001) and there was borderline fair agreement between the two methods (κ = 0.19, 95% CI 0.07–0.31, p = 0.002; 95% limits of agreement −2.2, 5.1). Exact agreement within score categories and gross misclassificationwere 45.8% and 21.9%, respectively. The distribution of dietary intakes, reported on the food records by the MEDAS-derived total MedDiet score, was in the expected direction, but no association was observed with cardiometabolic risk factors. The two administrations of the MEDAS produced similar mean total MedDiet scores (5.5 vs. 5.4, p = 0.706), which were correlated (r and ICC = 0.69, p < 0.001) and agreed fairly (κ = 0.38, 95% CI 0.24–0.52, p < 0.001; 95% limits of agreement −3.1, 3.2). The English version of the MEDAS has acceptable accuracy and reliability for assessing MedDiet adherence among individuals with a high cardiovascular risk, in the UK, and can be used to rank individuals according to MedDiet adherence in research and practice.

BackgroundDiagnosis with Type 2 Diabetes is an opportunity for individuals to change their physical activity and dietary behaviours. Diabetes treatment guidelines recommend theory-based, patient-centred care and advocate the provision of support for patient motivation but the motivational experiences of people newly diagnosed with diabetes have not been well studied. Framed in self-determination theory, this study aimed to qualitatively explore how this patient group articulate and experience different types of motivation when attempting lifestyle change.MethodsA secondary analysis of semi-structured interview data collected with 30 (n female = 18, n male = 12) adults who had been newly diagnosed with type two diabetes and were participants in the Early ACTID trial was undertaken. Deductive directed content analysis was performed using NVivo V10 and researcher triangulation to identify and describe patient experiences and narratives that reflected the motivation types outlined in self-determination theory and if/how these changed over time.ResultsThe findings revealed the diversity in motivation quality both between and within individuals over time and that patients with newly-diagnosed diabetes have multifaceted often competing motivations for lifestyle behaviour change. Applying self-determination theory, we identified that many participants reported relatively dominant controlled motivation to comply with lifestyle recommendations, avoid their non-compliance being “found out” or supress guilt following lapses in behaviour change attempts. Such narratives were accompanied by experiences of frustrating slow behaviour change progress. More autonomous motivation was expressed as something often achieved over time and reflected goals to improve health, quality of life or family time. Motivational internalisation was evident and some participants had integrated their behaviour change to a new way of life which they found resilient to common barriers.ConclusionsMotivation for lifestyle change following diagnosis with type two diabetes is complex and can be relatively low in self-determination. To achieve the patient empowerment aspirations of current national health care plans, intervention developers, and clinicians would do well to consider the quality not just quantity of their patients’ motivation.Trial registrationISRCTN ISRCTN92162869. Retrospectively registered

BackgroundThe ubiquity of technology in modern society has led to the American Academy of Pediatrics adapting their screen-viewing (SV) recommendations for children. The revised guidelines encourage families to identify an appropriate balance between SV and other activities. The aims of this study were to explore parents’ views of their child’s SV time and how important it is for families to achieve a ‘digital balance’.MethodsSemi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 51 parents of 8–9-year-old children, between July and October 2016. Inductive and deductive content analyses were used to explore parents’ perceptions of their child’s level of SV (low, medium, high), how parents feel about child SV, and the importance placed on achieving a digital balance. Parent report of child SV behaviours on weekdays and weekend days were assessed via questionnaire.ResultsInterview data revealed that because SV is considered the ‘norm’, parents struggle to limit it, partly because they want their children to be equipped for the modern technological world. While most parents believe SV to have negative effects on children, parents also report advantages to SV. Many parents feel that not all SV is equal, with tablets considered worse than television because of the isolated nature of activities, and educational SV considered more beneficial than non-educational SV. Most parents feel it is important for their family to achieve a digital balance, primarily to spend more quality family time together. Large variation was observed in parents’ descriptions of child SV time on weekdays and weekend days.ConclusionsParents recognise the importance of digital balance but want their children to fit into the ever-advancing digital world. Parents do not treat all SV equally. Watching television and engaging in educational SV may be encouraged, while ‘playing’ on tablets is discouraged. These findings highlight the challenge faced by researchers and policy makers to help families achieve a digital balance, and strategies are needed to support parents to plan child SV time.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12887-018-1106-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Objective: Little is known about adolescents' non-core food intake in the UK and the eating context in which they consume non-core foods. The present study aimed to describe types of non-core foods consumed by British adolescents in total and across different eating contexts. Design: A descriptive analysis, using cross-sectional data from food diaries. Non-core foods were classified based on cut-off points of fat and sugar from the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating. Eating context was defined as 'where' and 'with whom' adolescents consumed each food. Percentages of non-core energy were calculated for each food group in total and across eating contexts. A combined ranking was then created to account for each food's contribution to non-core energy intake and its popularity of consumption (percentage of consumers).

Breakfast frequency is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in Western populations, possibly via the types of food eaten or the timing of food consumption, but associations in Malaysian adolescents are unknown. While the timing of breakfast is similar, the type of food consumed at breakfast in Malaysia differs from Western diets, which allows novel insight into the mechanisms underlying breakfast–CVD risk associations. We investigated foods eaten for breakfast and associations between breakfast frequency and CVD risk factors in the Malaysian Health and Adolescents Longitudinal Research Team study (MyHeARTs). Breakfast (frequency of any food/drink reported as breakfast in 7-day diet history interviews) and CVD risk factors (body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, triacylglycerol, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and systolic and diastolic blood pressure) were cross-sectionally associated using linear regression adjusting for potential confounders (n = 795, age 13 years). Twelve percent of adolescents never ate breakfast and 50% ate breakfast daily, containing mean (SD) 400 (±127) kilocalories. Commonly consumed breakfast foods were cereal-based dishes (primarily rice), confectionery (primarily sugar), hot/powdered drinks (primarily Milo), and high-fat milk (primarily sweetened condensed milk). After adjustment, each extra day of breakfast consumption per week was associated with a lower BMI (−0.34 kg/m2, 95% confidence interval (CI) −0.02, −0.66), and serum total (−0.07 mmol/L 95% CI −0.02, −0.13) and LDL (−0.07 mmol/L 95% CI −0.02, −0.12) cholesterol concentrations. Eating daily breakfast in Malaysia was associated with slightly lower BMI and total and LDL cholesterol concentrations among adolescents. Longitudinal studies and randomized trials could further establish causality.

In recent years, recommender systems have been employed in domains like e-commerce, tourism, and multimedia streaming, where personalising users’ experience based on their interactions is a fundamental aspect to consider. Recent recommender system developments have also focused on well-being, yet existing solutions have been entirely designed considering one single well-being aspect in isolation, such as a healthy diet or an active lifestyle. This research introduces EvoRecSys, a novel recommendation framework that proposes evolutionary algorithms as the main recommendation engine, thereby modelling the problem of generating personalised well-being recommendations as a multi-objective optimisation problem. EvoRecSys captures the interrelation between multiple aspects of well-being by constructing configurable recommendations in the form of bundled items with dynamic properties. The preferences and a predefined well-being goal by the user are jointly considered. By instantiating the framework into an implemented model, we illustrate the use of a genetic algorithm as the recommendation engine. Finally, this implementation has been deployed as a Web application in order to conduct a users’ study.

ObjectivesExamine the extent that parent gender is associated with supporting children’s physical activity.DesignCross-sectional mixed-methods study.Setting47 primary schools located in Bristol (UK).Participants944 children aged 8–9 years and one of their parents provided quantitative data; 51 parents (20 fathers) were interviewed.MethodsChildren wore an accelerometer, and mean minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day, counts per minute (CPM) and achievement of national MVPA guidelines were derived. Parents reported who leads in supporting child activity during the week and weekend. Linear and logistic regression examined the association between gender of parent who supports child activity and child physical activity. For the semistructured telephone interviews, inductive and deductive content analyses were used to explore the role of gender in how parents support child activity.ResultsParents appeared to have a stronger role in supporting boys to be more active, than girls, and the strongest associations were when they reported that both parents had equal roles in supporting their child. For example, compared with the reference of female/mother support, equal contribution from both parents during the week was associated with boys doing 5.9 (95% CI 1.2 to 10.6) more minutes of MVPA per day and more CPM when both parents support on weekday and weekends (55.1 (14.3 to 95.9) and 52.8 (1.8 to 103.7), respectively). Associations in girls were weaker and sometimes in the opposite direction, but there was no strong statistical evidence for gender interactions. Themes emerged from the qualitative data, specifically; parents proactively supporting physical activity equally, mothers supporting during the week, families getting together at weekends, families doing activities separately due to preferences and parents using activities to bond one-to-one with children.ConclusionsMothers primarily support child activity during the week. Children, possibly more so boys, are more active if both parents share the supporting role.

Publication bias is prevalent within the scientific literature. Whilst there are multiple ideas on how to reduce publication bias, only a minority of journals have made substantive changes to address the problem. We aimed to explore the perceived feasibility of strategies to reduce publication bias by gauging opinions of journal editors (n = 73) and other academics/researchers (n = 160) regarding nine methods of publishing and peer-reviewing research: mandatory publication, negative results journals/articles, open reviewing, peer-review training and accreditation, post-publication review, pre-study publication of methodology, published rejection lists, research registration, and two-stage review. Participants completed a questionnaire asking both quantitative (multiple choice or Likert scales) and qualitative (open-ended) questions regarding the barriers to implementing each suggestion, and their strengths and limitations. Participants were asked to rate the nine suggestions, then choose the method they felt was most effective. Mandatory publication was most popularly selected as the ‘most effective’ method of reducing publication bias for editors (25%), and was the third most popular choice for academics/researchers (14%). The most common selection for academics/researchers was two-stage review (26%), but fewer editors prioritised this (11%). Negative results journals/articles were the second and third most common choices for academics/researchers (21%) and editors (16%), respectively. Editors more commonly chose research registration as ‘most effective’ (21%), which was favoured by only 6% of academics/researchers. Whilst mandatory publication was generally favoured by respondents, it is infeasible to trial at a journal level. Where suggestions have already been implemented (e.g. negative results journals/articles, trial registration), efforts should be made to objectively assess their efficacy. Two-stage review should be further trialled as its popularity amongst academics/researchers suggests it may be well received, though editors may be less receptive. Several underlying barriers to change also emerged, including scientific culture, impact factors, and researcher training; these should be further explored to reduce publication bias.