Modelling population responses to workplace minimum dietary standards introduced as workers return after social lockdowns.

BACKGROUND: Diet norms are the shared social behaviours and beliefs about diets. In many societies, including the UK, these norms are typically linked to unhealthy diets and impede efforts to improve food choices. Social interactions that could influence one another's food choices, were highly disrupted during the lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A return to workplaces and re-establishment of eating networks may present an opportunity to influence dietary norms by introducing minimum dietary standards to in workplaces, which could then spread through wider home and workplace networks. METHODS: An agent-based model was constructed to simulate a society reflecting the structure of a city population (1000 households) to explore changes in personal and social diet-related norms. The model tracked individual meal choices as agents interact in home, work or school settings and recorded changes in diet quality (range 1 to 100). Scenarios were run to compare individuals' diet quality with the introduction of minimum dietary standards with degrees of working from home. RESULTS: The more people mixed at work the greater the impact of minimum standards on improving diet norms. Socially isolated households remained unaffected by minimum standards, whereas household members exposed directly, in workplaces or schools, or indirectly, influenced by others in the household, had a large and linear increase in diet quality in relation to minimum standards (0.48 [95% CI 0.34, 0.62] per unit increase in minimum standards). Since individuals regressed to the new population mean, a small proportion of diets decreased toward lower population norms. The degree of return to work influenced the rate and magnitude of change cross the population (-2.4 points [-2.40, -2.34] in mean diet quality per 20% of workers isolating). CONCLUSIONS: These model results illustrate the qualitative impact social connectivity could have on changing diets through interventions. Norms can be changed more in a more connected population, and social interactions spread norms between contexts and amplified the influence of, for example, workplace minimum standards beyond those directly exposed. However, implementation of minimum standards in a single type of setting would not reach the whole population and in some cases may decrease diet quality. Any non-zero standard could yield improvements beyond the immediate adult workforce and this could spill between social contexts, but would be contingent on population connectivity.

Effect of different food groups on energy intake within and between individuals.

PURPOSE: Energy intake varies day-to-day because we select different foods, and different amounts of these foods. Energy balance is not tightly regulated over the short-term, and the variability in diet results in an energy surplus or deficit. The aim of this study was to explore how consuming more, or less, than usual amounts of foods contributed towards balancing of total energy intake (TEI) within a day. METHODS: Four-day food records came from 6155 adult participants of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey to study these effects. Within-individual regression models of the energy from 60 food groups on TEI were calculated. Energy intake variation within-individuals was regressed separately on the variation in amounts of each food group. Regression models were also fitted to individual four day means. RESULTS: Within-individual coefficients ranged from about 0 for high-fibre breakfast cereals to 1.7 for sugar preserves and spreads. Three food groups (e.g. low-calorie soft drinks) tended to reduce TEI, and 13 food groups (e.g. margarine and other spreads, and alcoholic drinks) tended to elevate TEI above the energy content of the food group when more than usual amounts were consumed. Foods groups of higher energy densities, or lower fibre content (e.g. typical "snack" foods, low-fibre bread, and processed meat) tended to promote greater TEI more so than did food groups of lower energy densities (e.g. meat, fish, high-fibre foods, and potatoes). CONCLUSION: Different food groups vary considerably in the extent to which they affect TEI in free-living adults. The associations between consuming more, or less, than usual amounts of foods and the effects on TEI are consistent with those found in laboratory studies. Importantly, the present study found similar associations, but using a different methodology and in observational data, providing novel information on energy intake compensation.

Association between hours worked in paid employment and diet quality, frequency of eating out and consuming takeaways in the UK.

OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between hours worked and diet quality, frequency of eating out and consuming takeaways. DESIGN: Data were taken from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (2008-2014). Associations between hours worked in paid employment and diet quality, assessed using the Diet Quality Index (DQI) and selected foods and nutrients, were tested using linear regression models. Associations between hours worked and frequency of eating out and consuming takeaways were tested using ordinal logistic regression models. All models were adjusted for sex, age, equivalised household income, household composition and household food role. SETTING: UK. PARTICIPANTS: Adults (n 2154) aged 19-64 years in employment. RESULTS: Mean (95 % CI) hours worked per week was 36·1 (35·6, 36·6) and mean DQI score was 41·9 (41·2, 42·5) %. Hours worked was not associated with DQI score, frequency of eating out or consuming takeaways. Hours worked was positively associated with consuming red meat, processed meat and alcohol intake. Adults working more hours had lower intake of fibre but higher total fat and saturated fat intakes if they lived in households with children. CONCLUSIONS: Working hours may not be the main factor driving poor-quality diets among this sample of UK adults in employment. Focusing on consumption of foods prepared outside the household may not be the most efficient way to improve diet quality as effort is needed at all levels. Although it is unclear what is driving the differences in nutrient intakes according to household composition, they are important to consider when developing interventions to improve healthy eating.

Shopping versus Nature? An Exploratory Study of Everyday Experiences.

Although a growing volume of empirical research shows that being in nature is important for human wellbeing, the definition of what constitutes an 'experience in nature,' and how this is different from other types of experiences, is very often left implied. In this paper we contrast everyday experiences involving nature with a category of everyday experience in which most people regularly partake. We present an exploratory study in which people (N = 357) were explicitly asked to describe a memory they had of an everyday 'experience which involved nature,' as well as an everyday 'experience which involved shopping.' The open-ended responses to these questions were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Nature experiences were generally found to be more positive than shopping experiences, and they were more likely to be rated as 'peaceful' and 'active' compared to shopping experiences. Follow-up analyses indicate a significant interaction between experience category (nature or shopping), and the relationship between connectedness to nature and the amount of pleasure associated with that experience: The more strongly connected to nature a respondent was, the larger the disparity between the pleasantness of the shopping experience and that of the experience in nature tended to be.

A view not to be missed: Salient scene content interferes with cognitive restoration.

Attention Restoration Theory (ART) states that built scenes place greater load on attentional resources than natural scenes. This is explained in terms of "hard" and "soft" fascination of built and natural scenes. Given a lack of direct empirical evidence for this assumption we propose that perceptual saliency of scene content can function as an empirically derived indicator of fascination. Saliency levels were established by measuring speed of scene category detection using a Go/No-Go detection paradigm. Experiment 1 shows that built scenes are more salient than natural scenes. Experiment 2 replicates these findings using greyscale images, ruling out a colour-based response strategy, and additionally shows that built objects in natural scenes affect saliency to a greater extent than the reverse. Experiment 3 demonstrates that the saliency of scene content is directly linked to cognitive restoration using an established restoration paradigm. Overall, these findings demonstrate an important link between the saliency of scene content and related cognitive restoration.