Nutritional quality of snacks for preschoolers recommended on the internet

Abstract

Introduction: Concerns about proper nutrition in childhood have been highlighted by the media. This is accompanied by an ongoing increase in the number of Internet pages, including those on social networks, channeled toward providing health information. Objective: To analyze the nutritional quality of snack recipes presented on web pages, aimed at preschoolers and described as healthy. Methods: a cross-sectional study carried out in 2015. A search was made for Brazilian web pages aimed at the lay public, and that contained snacks for children between 2 and 6 years of age. The first 20 URLs located by the search engine were selected and 10% of the recipes were set apart. The snacks were checked for compliance with steps 6, 7, and 8 of the Food Guide. Subsequently, nutritional labels were made for the preparations that met the three pre-established steps. Results: 85% of the pages were sites, 5% were blogs, and the rest were identified as sites/blogs. It was found that all were readable/comprehensible and 40% provided author identification. Of the 35 preparations initially observed, 31.4% met all three steps for healthy eating. In the qualitative analysis, seven were considered hypocaloric; only one of the snacks came close to the proposed carbohydrate content; two had excess protein. In general, the recipes had low quantities of: lipids, calcium, iron, sodium, and fiber. Conclusions: less than half of the addresses consulted identified the author. In addition, the recipes were predominantly misleading, as most had inadequacies in macronutrient and micronutrient content.

Analysis of Recipes Shared as ‘Healthy’ in a Popular Brazilian Website: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Additionally, such studies addressed nutrient content to assess recipes’ healthiness [ 19 ], while our study did a qualitative-based assessment. Studies on the subject also focused on different data sources, such as ‘clean eating’ blogs [ 44 ] or recipes for pre-schoolers [ 45 ]. Nevertheless, our study agrees with previous research, where most recipes online were found to be unhealthy according to the World Health Organization and the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency’s recommendations [ 19 ], including those that use a ‘healthy’ appeal in their descriptions [ 19 , 44 , 45 ].…”

“…Studies on the subject also focused on different data sources, such as ‘clean eating’ blogs [ 44 ] or recipes for pre-schoolers [ 45 ]. Nevertheless, our study agrees with previous research, where most recipes online were found to be unhealthy according to the World Health Organization and the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency’s recommendations [ 19 ], including those that use a ‘healthy’ appeal in their descriptions [ 19 , 44 , 45 ]. Previous research in the Brazilian context, conducted on YouTube ® and not focused on ‘healthy recipes’, also identified the presence of UP foods as ingredients and a scarcity of fruits, legumes, nuts, and seeds [ 43 ].…”

“…In the literature, we could not find a specific recommendation for how many search results should be ideally assessed for eligibility. A previous study on the same topic as ours analyzed the first 20 results [ 45 ], but experimental studies about online searches indicate that in less than 2% of cases, individuals look past the first results page [ 47 ]. We conducted a pilot search and observed that after the 50 first links (5 pages), results became irrelevant to our study.…”

“…Studies on the quality of recipes shared on the internet are scarce (albeit recent) and show that most recipes do not have healthy characteristics when compared to recommendations for healthy eating [ 19 , 43 ], including those that use a ‘healthy’ appeal in their descriptions [ 19 , 44 , 45 ]. The only two Brazilian studies identified on this topic evaluated recipes from websites and blogs, either aimed at a very specific audience (pre-schoolers) [ 45 ], or at social media (YouTube ® , San Bruno, CA, USA) [ 43 ]. Considering the vast sources of culinary recipes online, there is still a gap in the literature which prevents us from knowing whether they are, in fact, contributing to the promotion of healthy eating as recommended by national dietary guidelines.…”

Translational medicine and its contribution to public health

“…In the current issue of JHGD these studies evaluate technologies that involve the improvement of health conditions and/or issues for public health investigating the health situation of the population, especially children and adolescents [8][9][10] , which corroborate the themes in the health promotion field within the context of primary care focusing on teens and their vulnerabilities [11][12][13] , nutrition and influence on child and adolescent development [14][15][16][17][18] and themes focused on translational medicine, describing results to improve the health indicators of the population [19][20][21][22] . With an emphasis on nutritional status, to highlight obesity in adolescents, Tebar et al 17 found the prevalence of abdominal obesity in adolescents in the city of Londrina, Paraná, Brazil, and its associated factors.…”