Systems Nutrology of Adolescents with Divergence between Measured and Perceived Weight Uncovers a Distinctive Profile Defined by Inverse Relationships of Food Consumption

Abstract

Changes in food consumption, physical inactivity, and other lifestyle habits are potential causes of the obesity epidemic. Paradoxically, the media promotes idealization of a leaner body appearance. Under these circumstances, self-perception of weight by adolescents may be affected. Here, we performed a cross-sectional study, between June and December 2009, to evaluate the interaction between anthropometric status, perceived body weight, and food consumption profiles in 1496 adolescents from public schools in Salvador, Brazil. Data on socio-epidemiological information, anthropometric status, and dietary patterns were analyzed using multidimensional statistical approaches adapted from systems biology. There were dissimilarities between anthropometric status and perception of body weight related to sex. Four dietary patterns were identified based on the food intake profile in the study participants. The distinct dietary patterns were not influenced by divergence between measured and perceived weight. Moreover, network analysis revealed that overestimation of body weight was characterized by a selectivity in ingestion of food groups that resulted in appearance of inverse correlations of consumption. Thus, misperception of body weight is associated with inverse correlations of consumption of certain food groups. These findings may aid individualized nutritional interventions in adolescents who overestimate body weight.

Systems Nutrology of Persons with Tuberculosis Identifies Specific Dietary Profiles Associated with Dysglycemia

“…FFQ was speci cally developed for this study, to delineate the dietary patterns of TB patients and household contacts, with and without dysglycemia. In addition, the data retrieve and processing of variables were performed following standardized steps from a previous study from our group [16,17] The FFQ was applied to TB cases and their household contacts at the enrollment visit (before the patient initiated anti-TB treatment). The consults about the habitual diet were referred to consumption of food outside and inside the home in the last 6 months.…”

“…To analyze the potential association between food consumption pro les, anthropometric and dysglycemia status, we used an analytical approach denominated 'systems nutrology', created and detailed by our group in the article of Andrade et al (2020), based on ecological analysis approach [21,22].…”

“…To evaluate the overall pro le of consumption of the different food groups, we transformed data on total consumption of each food group (in grams) into abundance of consumption relative to total diet. This is a common method used in ecological analysis and was used previously by our group evaluating food consumption of humans [16,17]. After de ning the proportion of consumption of each food group in the total ingestion we performed an unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis to de ne the dietary patterns (Ward's method).…”

“…To test the association between the clinical groups and the different dietary patterns identi ed (n=3) in the hierarchical cluster analysis, we performed a multinomial multivariate logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age, sex, hemoglobin and BMI. As in a previous study of our group [17], the outcome variable was the pattern of food consumption. The dietary pattern 2 was used as the baseline for estimation of odds of consumption of the other patterns, given that most patients in this cluster are healthy.…”

“…However, the increased frequency of patients with TB-DM comorbidity [15] raises the question of whether the current nutritional recommendations are appropriate. In a previous study, our group used big data and arti cial intelligence analysis tools to develop the concept of Systems Nutrology, in order to identify dietary pro les of populations based on unsupervised analyses [16,17]. Such knowledge and approach may be useful to de ne nuances in the dietary pro les that may be associated with dysglycemia in persons with TB.…”