16 pages, Producing sufficient food to satisfy nutritional needs is imperative for building a prosperous society. This study examined trends in agricultural yields, water and sanitation services, and nutrition indices in Nigeria. Secondary data from the FAO-FAOSTAT (2000–2020) were utilized and analyzed using descriptive statistics, the respective coefficients of variation and determination, the Mann-Kendall trend test, the Pearson correlation and multivariate regression for statistical inferences. The results show trends for data on several variables. GDP per capita and population numbers were positively correlated with the number of children under five years of age who were stunted, and the proportion of population and number of people using safely managed and at least basic drinking water and sanitation services. A major result was the significant positive relationship between cassava yield and number of children under five who were stunted. Also, there was the negative influence of population numbers on cassava and maize yields. If not attended to, the outcomes of these relationships are expected to exacerbate nutrition insecurity and stunting in children under five. An improvement in the national indices on agricultural yields and nutrition security is imperative for the accelerated attainment by 2030 of the national nutrition security targets and the SDGs.
Online from publication issue. 3 pages., Article summarizes findings of the 16th annual "Power of Meat" survey funded by the Food Industry Association (FMI) and the North American Meat Institute's (Meat Institute) Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education. Focuses on beef, pork, and poultry consumption in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
16 pages, Promoting healthier diets is strategic to solve the global societal challenge of excessive and unhealthy calorie intake that causes obesity and overweight and is responsible for chronic diseases that burden healthcare systems. The relationship between food and personal health is well established and in recent years it has originated a number of dietary recommendations from the World Health Organisation (WHO) focused on encouraging healthier diets. The environmental impact of food intake and of particular diets is a growing research area. However, neither research
nor public policies, in particular, have been able so far to establish a link between promoting healthier diets and their impact on enhancing environmentally healthier farming systems and the sustainability of rural landscapes. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a multidisciplinary literature review which combines evidence from nutrition and health sciences with that from environmental, agrarian and sustainability studies on the impacts of foods and dietary patterns on the environment, ecosystems and rural landscape. This integrate d review,
complemented with data analysis, highlights the Mediterranean diet as a healthier dietary pattern whose promotion could be beneficial to recover or maintain the sustainability of Mediterranean rural landscape. Hence, the second part of the paper focus on discussing the role of public policies in enabling the link between enhancing healthier diets and healthier farming systems in order to sustain rural landscapes since these play a key role in the sustainability of Mediterranean rural areas.
25 pages, Decreasing the consumption of meat and dairy has been identified as an effective strategy for protecting the health of humans and the planet. More specifically, transitioning to diets that are lower in animal-source foods and higher in fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains offers a promising opportunity to better align consumer behaviors with contemporary nutritional and ecological goals. However, given the limited understanding of how these changes in dietary behaviors can be best promoted, there is a need to explore the merits of community-based approaches to meat reduction and their capacity to advance more sustainable practices of eating at the individual, household, and community levels. To address this gap in the literature, we surveyed more than 100 American households participating in a communitywide, 12-week-long Meatless Monday challenge and tracked the changes in their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and food choices over a nine-month period. The case study provided herein highlights a number of key findings from our evaluation. Most notably, our results demonstrate the value of community-based efforts in initiating and maintaining dietary behavior change and provide preliminary insights into the unique roles of multilevel interventions and diverse stakeholder engagement in promoting healthier, more sustainable diets.
9 pages., Online via publisher., An adapted health-branding framework guided the 3-step mixed-methods approach to identify evidence for campaigns using a scoping review, comprehensive literature review (1990-2016), and key-informant interviews. Results showed that industry, government, and non-governmental organizations supported 13 campaigns that used various health-branding strategies.
12 pages, via Online Journal, Climate change compels us to rethink the ethics of our dietary choices and has become an interesting issue for ethicists concerned about diets, including animal ethicists. The defenders of veganism have found that climate change provides a new reason to support their cause because many animal-based foods have high greenhouse gas emissions. The new style of argumentation, the ‘climatic argument(s) for veganism’, may benefit animals by persuading even those who are not concerned about animals themselves but worry about climate change. The arguments about the high emissions of animal-based food, and a resulting moral obligation to abstain from eating such products, are an addition to the prior forms of argument for principled veganism grounded on the moral standing of, and concern for, nonhuman animals. In this paper, we examine whether the climatic argument for veganism is convincing. We propose a formulation for the amended version of the argument and discuss its implications and differences compared to the moral obligations of principled veganism. We also reflect upon the implications of our findings on agricultural and food ethics more generally.
11pgs, Many tropical countries are experiencing massive land-use change with profound environmental and socioeconomic implications. In Indonesia, oil palm cultivation is rapidly expanding at the expense of more traditional crops – such as rubber and rice – and forest land. While environmental effects of the oil palm boom were analyzed in many studies, much less is known about social effects. Here, we analyze how oil palm cultivation by smallholder farmers is associated with nutrition through changing income and gender roles. The analysis uses panel data collected in Jambi Province, Sumatra, one of the hotspots of Indonesia's recent oil palm boom. Regression models show that oil palm cultivation is positively associated with nutrition and dietary quality. These associations are related to income gains that improve smallholders' access to nutritious foods from the market. Oil palm requires less labor than traditional crops, so a switch to oil palm could potentially free family labor for off-farm economic activities. We find that oil palm cultivation is positively associated with off-farm employment of male but not female household members, which may be related to unequal opportunities and social norms. Independent of oil palm cultivation, female off-farm employment is positively associated with nutrition, even after controlling for household income.
13 pages., Online via Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)., Analysis among adolescents (12-17 years old) revealed four types of food preferences: varied diet, avoiding vegetables, low appetite, and healthy diet. Urban versus rural residence was among the major predictors for food preferences.
17 pages, Traditionally, dietary choices are formed through socialization, social norms and the social environment, while news media seemed to have little impact on people’s diets. This article explores whether today’s news media consumption and in particular consuming and sharing information about food on social media are associated with following a vegetarian or vegan diet. The data come from a tailor-made survey carried out in Hamburg, Germany, in 2018 (N = 1,214). Making use of probit regression with multiple equations, we analyse the associations between vegetarianism and individual news consumption, having vegetarians in the social environment, and communicating about food, controlling for individual and family characteristics. We find that both regular news consumption via social media and having vegetarian friends or family members is associated with pursuing a vegetarian diet. Moreover, news consumption via social media comes with increased communication about food, suggesting high relevance of social media for pursuing a vegetarian diet.
12 pages, According to the World Health Organization a diet high in vegetables may reduce the risk of coronary heart diseases, stroke, and certain types of cancer. In addition, vegetables have lower carbon footprints than most other foods. The main objective in this paper is to find drivers behind vegetable consumption, with emphasis on health and environmental motivation. We used the theory of planned behavior together with direct acyclic graphs as a theoretical basis. The empirical analysis applied the graded response model and bounded beta regression with survey data from 2019. The main results show that health attitude is a stronger motivator for vegetable consumption than environmental attitudes.
