Development and Application of Healthiness Indicators for Commercial Establishments that Sell Foods for Immediate Consumption

Abstract

Studies of food environments lack easy-to-apply indicators for their characterization and monitoring. This study aimed to create and assess the applicability of an a priori classification of establishments that sell foods for immediate consumption and to develop and apply indicators for assessment of the establishments’ healthiness. The indicators were grouped by the types of foods sold most frequently at these establishments, according to the extent and purpose of the foods’ industrial processing. Four indicators were developed, based on the availability of unprocessed/minimally processed foods (MPF) and ultra-processed foods (UPF) in the establishments. The classification and indicators were applied to commercial food establishments at two Brazilian universities. Descriptive analyses were performed to characterize the food environment for all the establishments and by university. Two proportion indicators assess the relative availability of subgroups of MPF and UPF. The UPF/MPF ratio expresses the relative advantage/disadvantage of the availability of MPF compared to that of UPF. The Healthiness Index or summary score expresses the availability of MPF and the unavailability of UPF. The classification and indicators present good discriminatory power and are easy to operationalize, interpret, and adapt.

Organizational Food Environments: Advancing Their Conceptual Model

“…It has already been used by José et al (2021) [ 39 ] for the development of an instrument that measures hospital food environments in Brazil. Notably, however, measuring organizational food environments entails many challenges, including the development of mechanisms for assessing the decisional level, the application of indicators of the healthiness of the organizational environment [ 21 , 40 ], and the improvement of procedures for assessing the informal market and its surroundings. Regarding the latter, one challenge is to delimit what will be investigated considering the specificities that are of interest to the organizational food environment.…”

Availability and properties of commercially produced food products offered in European public universities: A North–South comparison

“…In the present study specifically, we used it to assess the availability of products and characterize their properties (nutritional quality and processing level). We chose to focus on these indicators for commercially produced food products offered on campus, as they provide essential information on the FE and can contribute to improving the interpretation of data collected in different realities (Ferreira et al., 2021). Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Foundation for Student Life in Oslo and Akershus (Studentsamskipnaden i Oslo og Akershus—SiO) and Vice Management of Assets and Contracting of the UPV/EHU.…”

“…The authors recorded data on the supply of homemade products offered at the UPV/EHU; however, the offer of these products at OsloMet could not be studied due to the campuses' closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We plan to assess the complete offer in the future to make broader conclusions, and to incorporate other elements of the conceptual model proposed by de Castro and Canella (2022), as well as other healthiness indicators (Ferreira et al, 2021), for a better understanding of these organizational FE.…”

Potential for healthy eating in a Brazilian public university food environment

“…Despite the previous observations, few Brazilian studies have evaluated the food environments in universities [9,11,27,28]. In a study carried out in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Franco et al [27] estimated changes over five years in the availability, price, and advertising of food in authorized food services in a public university and observed unfavorable changes in food availability.…”

“…In a study carried out in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Franco et al [27] estimated changes over five years in the availability, price, and advertising of food in authorized food services in a public university and observed unfavorable changes in food availability. Tavares et al [28] proposed the healthiness index for commercial establishments to be used in the evaluation of the authorized food services in universities. This index is based on the ratio between the proportion of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and ultra-processed foods available in each establishment.…”