0000000000745456
AUTHOR
Kaisa Poutanen
Determinants of a regular intake of a nutritionally balanced school lunch among 10-17-year-old schoolchildren with special reference to sense of coherence.
Background Free nutritionally balanced school lunches are offered to all schoolchildren in basic education in Finland in each school day. Having school lunch on a regular basis has been found to reflect overall eating patterns. However, skipping part of or even the entire lunch is common. The present study investigated the determinants of the regular consumption of a nutritionally balanced school lunch among schoolchildren, with special reference to the role of sense of coherence (SOC). Methods In total, 887 children (457 girls and 424 boys), aged 10–17 years from three municipalities in Eastern Finland, filled in a web-based questionnaire in class during a school day and reported eating pa…
The case for strategic international alliances to harness nutritional genomics for public and personal health
Nutrigenomics is the study of how constituents of the diet interact with genes, and their products, to alter phenotype and, conversely, how genes and their products metabolise these constituents into nutrients, antinutrients, and bioactive compounds. Results from molecular and genetic epidemiological studies indicate that dietary unbalance can alter gene-nutrient interactions in ways that increase the risk of developing chronic disease. The interplay of human genetic variation and environmental factors will make identifying causative genes and nutrients a formidable, but not intractable, challenge. We provide specific recommendations for how to best meet this challenge and discuss the need …