Development and Validation of a Technology-Based System for Tracking and Reporting Dietary Intake at School Meals.

OBJECTIVE: This report describes the development and validation of a technology-based system that integrates data on food choice, nutrition, and plate waste to generate feedback reports summarizing students' dietary intake at school meals. METHODS: Cafeteria staff used the system to document the school lunch choices of seventh-graders (n = 37) in an urban charter school for 5 months. Plate waste was assessed by research staff using a visual estimation method that was validated against directly weighed plate waste. RESULTS: Most food choices (97.1%) were correctly recorded through the system. Visual estimates of plate waste had excellent interrater reliability (r's ≥ .94) and agreement with direct measurements (ρ's ≥ .75). Plate waste assessment required approximately 10 s/tray. Fifty-four percent of parents received feedback reports consistently. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The technology-based system enabled staff to monitor dietary intake accurately at school meals. The system could potentially inform lunch menu modifications aimed at reducing plate waste.

Health Literacy Research and Practice: A Needed Paradigm Shift.

As a field of research, a viable approach to improving health outcomes, and an important area of policy, health literacy has experienced significant growth and considerable evolution since its broad introduction in the 1990s. Despite that history, far too many practitioners, researchers, and policymakers focusing on clinical medicine, health systems, public health, and health policy remain unaware of and unaffected by the best practices of health literacy. While the inherent promise of health literacy is improved health and well-being, the bulk of research has focused on identifying the negative effects of a lack of health literacy. This strategy is a hindrance to further identifying the utility and increasing the uptake of lessons learned about health literacy in government, business, health care systems, and society. The field needs to reverse direction away from that deficit model of health literacy and focus collective efforts on a positive model of how health literacy can and should be prioritized and utilized to improve health at lower costs. This shift from framing health literacy as a problem to proving the viability and strength of health literacy as a solution will present to policymakers a clear choice to either adopt and promote the best practices of health literacy or suffer the consequences of being the leader who ignored a proven, viable solution to the currently unsustainable health care expenditures and ever-increasing burden of preventable disease, disability, and early death.

The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Improve the Health and Wellness of Persons with Disabilities: historical review, rationale, and implications 5 years after publication.

This article reviews much of the history of the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Improve the Health and Wellness of Persons with Disabilities and its implications 5 years after publication. This article also reviews historical trends related to disability legislation such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Era and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the New Freedom Initiative. Most Americans will have a disability at some point in their lives. The etiologies of disabilities are many, including genetic, congenital, traumatic, or due to chronic illnesses or the aging process.