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In this issue
- Menu labelling linked to less fat and salt in food at major UK restaurant chains
- Big upgrade for the Food environment assessment tool
- New Evidence Brief. Active travel – function over form
- Designing for health – creating physically active communities
- Re-Visioning Transport and Health 2019 – new video
- Latest issue of epigram from the MRC Epidemiology Unit
- Upcoming talks and seminars
- Our latest publications
- Your information and preferences
Menu labelling linked to less fat and salt in food at major UK restaurant chains
Food and drink sold at restaurants whose menus display energy information are lower in fat and salt than those of their competitors, according to new CEDAR research.
The researchers behind the study argue that if government policy made menu labelling mandatory, it could encourage restaurants to produce healthier options, leading to public health benefits.
Dolly Theis, PhD student at CEDAR said: “This is the first study to look at differences in nutritional content of food from restaurants with and without menu labelling in the UK. It suggests that on the whole, restaurants that provide information on calories on menus also serve healthier food, in terms of fat and salt levels. As well as providing useful information for customers, mandatory menu labelling could also encourage restaurants to improve the nutritional quality of their menus.”
- Read the full story
- Read an article in The Conversation by Dolly Theis: ‘Some countries have introduced mandatory nutritional labelling on menus – here’s why the UK should follow suit’.
- Read the original paper: Differences in energy and nutritional content of menu items served by popular UK chain restaurants with versus without voluntary menu labelling: a cross-sectional study. Theis, DRZ and Adams, J. PLOS ONE; Date; DOI: 0.1371/journal.pone.0222773.
The research was covered in the Times, accompanied by a very favourable editorial. The paper was also reported by the Daily Mail, and the i newspaper, as well as several specialist news outlets including The Caterer and Food Navigator. Dolly’s Conversation blog was re-published in Metro.
Big upgrade for the Food environment assessment tool
We’ve launched a big upgrade to the Food environment assessment tool (Feat), packed with new features.
Feat enables detailed exploration of the geography of food retail access. It is designed around the needs of professionals in public health, environmental health and planning roles, locally and nationally. It can be used to map, measure and monitor access to food outlets at a neighbourhood level, including changes over time.
Watch a short video introducing Feat:
Feat 2.0 extends the original England-only coverage to the whole of the UK – that’s seven geographic levels of food access estimates, including all 1.7 million postcodes.
Access detailed maps of six different food outlet types, with food outlet proportions and population adjustments. See how the local picture has changed by comparing the today’s data with snapshots going back to June 2014. Make custom selections of geographic areas to easily compare districts, towns and cities.
Feat produces summary data, in report-ready format. No data collection and no data processing required.
- Access Feat and find out more about the latest features www.feat-tool.org.uk
- Read the new comprehensive how-to guide
- Any questions? Contact feat-tool@mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk
New Evidence Brief. Active travel – function over form
Changes to the environment are being made to encourage more people to walk and cycle. But why do some of these interventions work and others fall flat?
The latest research suggests the answer may lie in asking not “what works?” but rather “how does it work, and in what context?”
This Evidence Brief outlines how intervention that affect features such as connectivity, safety, and experience can contribute and interact to change the likelihood that people walk or cycle.
- Read the Evidence Brief
- Read the original paper Can changing the physical environment promote walking and cycling? A systematic review of what works and how. Panter J et al, 2019, Health & Place. DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.102161
Designing for health – creating physically active communities
Writing in The Journal of the Town and Country Planning Association, CEDAR PhD student Anna Le Gouais outlines the findings of research on the opportunities and challenges in creating neighbourhoods that encourage physical activity and promote health.
Our environments can influence how much everyday physical activity we do. For decades our transport networks have been designed primarily around the needs of private cars. The result has been more car use, leading to congestion, pollution and more time for people to be sedentary. So if we want more people to walk and cycle, we need to design places that make it easy and attractive to do just that.
- Read the full article
- Read the original paper: Decision-making for active living infrastructure in new communities: a qualitative study in England. A Le Gouais, L Foley, D Ogilvie and C Guell. Journal of Public Health, 2019. DOI: 10.1093/pubmed/fdz105
Re-Visioning Transport and Health 2019 – new video
In July, researchers and policymakers gathered in Cambridge for a workshop and hackathon organised by members of the MRC Epidemiology Unit and Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund.
The event was held to assess the state of the computer vision field and discuss how developments can be made to provide data to help address questions of health and sustainability for transport systems and the built environment. It brought together experts in computer vision, earth observation, street level data collection, population health, cities, and transport studies.
As well as sharing the slides from the event, we’ve now made a short film about the event and why these issues matter around the world.
Latest issue of epigram from the MRC Epidemiology Unit
epigram contains stories from across the MRC Epidemiology Unit, which leads CEDAR.
The latest issue has stories about genetic research helping to overcome barriers to developing effective drugs to treat obesity, how biomarkers are giving us a better understanding of nutrition and health, how moderate changes in behaviour that can deliver substantial health benefits, and much more.
- Download epigram here (pdf)
- Printed copies are also available on request from comms@mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk
- Receive future issues via email by updating your preferences at www.cedar.iph.cam.ac.uk/subscribe or www,mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/subscribe
Upcoming talks and seminars
Look out for more talks and events at
www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/events and www.iph.cam.ac.uk/news/seminars
CEDAR / MRC Epidemiology Seminars
Past talks where slides, audio or video are available are listed at
www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/past-seminars/
6 November 2019, 12:30 – 13:30
Politics, policy and the absence of evidence: decision making about speed restrictions in Edinburgh and Belfast.
Prof Mike Kelly, Primary Care Unit, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge.
Meeting Rooms 1&2, Level 4, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
20 November 2019, 12:30 – 13:30
Community engagement to prevent and control of diabetes in Bangladesh
Dr Ed Fottrell, Director, UCL Centre for Global Non-Communicable Diseases..
Meeting rooms 1&2, Level 4, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
4 December 2019, 12:30 – 13:30
Dr Catherine Draper, University of the Witwatersand – Title TBC
Meeting Rooms 1&2, Level 4, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
Bradford Hill Seminars
All at 1pm on Fridays in the Large Seminar Room, Institute of Public Health. More details at http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/14499
8 November 2019. Prof Mette Kalager, University of Oslo. Cancer Screening and Prevention: Lessons Learned
29 November 2019. Dr Nick Steel, University of East Anglia. Title TBC
17 January 2020. Prof Steve Baker, University of Oxford. Title TBC
Our latest publications
The following papers have been published since the last CEDAR Bulletin. All are Open Access.
General public health
- Increasing healthy life expectancy equitably in England by 5 years by 2035: could it be achieved? Marteau TM, White M, Rutter H, Petticrew M, Mytton OT, McGowan JG, Aldridge RW. Lancet.
Diet
- Altering the availability or proximity of food, alcohol, and tobacco products to change their selection and consumption. Hollands GJ, Carter P, Anwer S, King SE, Jebb SA, Ogilvie D, Shemilt I, Higgins JPT, Marteau TM. Cochrane Database Syst Rev.
- Building consensus on interactions between population health researchers and the food industry: Two-stage, online, international Delphi study and stakeholder survey. Cullerton K, Adams J, Francis O, Forouhi N, White M. PLoS One.
- Current opportunities to catalyze research in nutrition and cancer prevention – an interdisciplinary perspective. Cancer Research UK – Ludwig Cancer Research Nutrition and Cancer Prevention Collaborative Group. BMC Med.
- Differences in diet quality and socioeconomic patterning of diet quality across ethnic groups: cross-sectional data from the HELIUS Dietary Patterns study. Yau A, Adams J, White M, Nicolaou M. Eur J Clin Nutr.
- Differences in energy and nutritional content of menu items served by popular UK chain restaurants with versus without voluntary menu labelling: a cross-sectional study. Theis, DRZ and Adams, J. PLOS ONE
- Home-prepared food, dietary quality and socio-demographic factors: a cross-sectional analysis of the UK National Diet and nutrition survey 2008-16. Clifford Astbury C, Penney TL, Adams J. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act.
- In reply to letter to the editor from V. Kraak and M. Mialon et al. Cullerton K, Adams J, Francis O, Forouhi N, White M. Obes Rev.
- What arguments and from whom are most influential in shaping public health policy: thematic content analysis of responses to a public consultation on the regulation of television food advertising to children in the UK. Razavi A, Adams J, White M. BMJ Open.
Physical Activity
- A comparison of the health and environmental impacts of increasing urban density against increasing propensity to walk and cycle in Nashville, USA. Ahmad S, Goodman A, Creutzig F, Woodcock J, Tainio M. Cities & Health.
- A qualitative study of health promotion in academy schools in England. Jessiman PE, Campbell R, Jago R, Van Sluijs EMF, Newbury-Birch D. BMC Public Health.
- Adolescents’ perspective on a school-based physical activity intervention: a mixed method study. Jong S, Croxson C, Guell C, Lawlor E, Foubister C, Brown HE, Wells EK, Wilkinson P, Vignoles A, Van Sluijs EMF, Corder K. J Sport Health Sci.
- Can changing the physical environment promote walking and cycling? A systematic review of what works and how. Panter J, Guell C, Humphreys D, Ogilvie D. Health Place.
- Cost-effectiveness of physical activity interventions in adolescents: model development and illustration using two exemplar interventions. Gc VS, Suhrcke M, Atkin AJ, van Sluijs E, Turner D. BMJ Open.
- Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between active commuting and patterns of movement behaviour during discretionary time: A compositional data analysis. Foley L, Dumuid D, Atkin AJ, Wijndaele K, Ogilvie D, Olds T. PLoS One.
- Decision-making for active living infrastructure in new communities: a qualitative study in England. Le Gouais A, Foley L, Ogilvie D, Guell C. J Public Health (Oxf).
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