Meg Bruening

Introduction: The prevalence of overweight and obesity and the associated non-communicable diseases in young adulthood has increased significantly in the last decade. Urban Indian young adults fail to meet the recommended guidelines for healthy diet and physical activity. The aim of this qualitative study was to gain novel insights into the barriers and facilitators of a healthy lifestyle of Indian young adults residing in urban settings. Methods: Underpinned by the social constructivism paradigm, in-depth interviews were conducted with young adults (aged 21–30 years) who were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling techniques from eight metropolitan cities (New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru). Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were transferred to NVivo software for inductive thematic analysis. Results: A total of 79 young adults (41 males, 38 females) participated in the interviews. Five themes and their associated sub-themes were identified: (i) Perceptions of a healthy lifestyle (consuming a balanced diet, leading an active life, having adequate sleep); (ii) Facilitators of a healthy lifestyle (family support and upbringing, health promotion by celebrities and famous personalities, built environment, body image, intrinsic motivation); (iii) Barriers to a healthy lifestyle (time constraints, food environment challenges, peer pressure); (iv) Strategies adopted to maintain a healthy lifestyle (dietary management, engaging in exercise and other forms of physical activity, reducing screen time); and (v) Recommendations for prospective interventions (education and awareness about nutrition and health, creating healthy and hygienic food environments). Conclusion: The evidence emerging from this multisite inquiry offers first-hand information about the individual, social, and environmental level barriers and facilitators to the adoption of a healthy lifestyle among urban Indian young adults. Strategies and recommendations suggested during the interviews can be used to tailor prospective lifestyle interventions for encouraging the adoption of sustainable healthy lifestyle in young adults. Prospective interventions could focus on enhancing nutrition and health knowledge of young consumers and offering more healthy and hygienic food options in cafeterias of workplaces and educational institutions as well as other eateries.

Purpose: Almost 1 in 5 children live in rural communities, which are more obesogenic than urban communities. Because rural schools have a higher proportion of students participating in the National School Lunch Program compared to urban schools, we aimed to understand rural–urban differences in student fruit and vegetable (FV) selection, consumption, and waste during lunch. Methods: This secondary analysis used baseline data from a cluster‐randomized trial testing school‐lunch salad bar and FV marketing interventions between 2017 and 2019 across elementary ( n = 13), middle ( n = 12), and high schools ( n = 12) in Arizona. Students’ objective FV selection, consumption, and waste was measured using digital scales to the nearest 2 g. Mixed effects zero‐inflated negative binomial models tested the effect of school rurality (rural vs. non‐rural), adjusted for sociodemographic and within‐school clustering. Findings: Rural and non‐rural schools did not differ on average FV selection, consumption, or waste. However, sex and eating duration significantly interacted with rurality ( p < 0.05). In non‐rural schools, girls were 33% more likely to select FVs for lunch compared to boys (OR = 0.43, z = –2.73, p = 0.009) and slower eaters in non‐rural areas had 1.16 greater odds of selecting FVs compared to faster eaters (OR = 1.16, z = –5.65, p = 0.002). Conclusion: Unexpectedly, rurality was not a correlate of students’ FV selection, consumption, or waste during school lunch. However, associations between sex, eating duration, and FV selection in non‐rural schools aligned with the broader scientific literature. These relations were not observed in rural schools, highlighting the need to better understand the influence of sociodemographic factors and eating styles on children's eating behaviors in rural schools.

Background and objectives: Urban Indian adolescents often practice unhealthy dietary behaviors such as meal skipping and snacking on high energy foods with low nutrient value. To promote healthy snacking behaviors among adolescents it is essential to explore the factors that may influence the consumption of healthy and unhealthy snacks among Indian adolescents.Materials and methods: Informed by the social constructivism framework, an exploratory-descriptive qualitative research approach was employed to obtain a richer understanding of the influences on urban Indian adolescents’ snacking behaviors. Using purposive sampling, adolescents aged 10–19 years were recruited from two government and two private schools in Varanasi city, Uttar Pradesh, India. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in Hindi/English, per the preference of the participants. The conversations were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and translated to English (where necessary) for analysis. Themes were extracted using inductive coding.Results: A total of 62 adolescents (50% female; 76% private school pupils) with mean age 15.3 (SD: 1.86) years completed the interviews between November 2024 and February 2025. Ten themes emerged including: (i) Perceptions of a snack; (ii) liking for unhealthy snacks; (iii) consequences of snacking; (iv) snacking timing; (v) cost of snacks; (vi) parental rules around snacking; (vii) influence of peers; (viii) school food environment; (ix) neighborhood food environment; (x) food and beverage marketing.Conclusion: These findings show that multiple factors are likely to influence snacking behaviors in Indian adolescents, aligning with literature on adolescent snack consumption in international settings. Behavioral interventions should be designed to create enabling environments to encourage healthy snack consumption in adolescents by removing barriers at the individual, household, and societal levels.

Food insecurity affects the health of college-aged individuals, but its impact on the gut microbiome (GM) over time is poorly understood. This study explored the association between food insecurity and the GM in eighty-five college students, identifying microbial taxa, metabolites and pathways linked to food security status and examining GM stability and microbe–metabolite interactions. Longitudinal GM and metabolomic data were collected from first-year students over an academic year, encompassing periods of variable food security status. Participants were categorised into three groups: food insecure (FI, n 13), food secure (FS, n 44) and variable (VAR, n 28) status. GM composition varied significantly between FS classifications (Bray–Curtis dissimilarity, P ≤ 0·005). Stability analysis revealed correlations between stability scores and microbial features, pathways and metabolites. Specific microbes (e.g. Bifidobacterium species, Faecalibacterium prausnitizii D and Lachnospiraceae), pathways (energy and microbial turnover) and metabolites (cadaverine, N-acetylcadaverine, putrescine, testosterone sulfate and creatine) associated with FI status were identified. Multi-omic integration revealed metabolic pathways influenced by differentially abundant microbial species and co-occurring fecal metabolites in FI participants related to the microbial production of polyamines, detoxification and energy metabolism. The transition from FS to FI showed no significant differences at specific taxonomic, functional or metabolite levels. This study uncovers complex interactions between food security, GM composition and metabolism. Significant differences were found in microbial community variability and metabolic pathways associated with food security status, but the transition from food security to insecurity disrupted the GM without clear taxonomic or functional distinctions, emphasising the need for further research into these mechanisms.

Background/Objectives: This study examines the relationship of eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) with child sex, food preference, and body mass index (BMI) percentiles in primarily Hispanic preschoolers, an understudied population. Methods: This was a secondary analysis of data from 211 children (79% Hispanic) aged 3 to 5 years from low-income families who completed a cluster randomized controlled trial from September 2017 to June 2020. Weight and height were used to calculate BMI percentiles. Sweet (animal crackers) and salty (pretzels) snacks were used to conduct a validated classroom-based EAH assessment. A generalized estimating equation (GEE) approach investigated associations between the grams of snacks consumed and BMI percentiles. A set of nested multivariable GEEs were estimated, while adjusting for potentially important covariates. Results: Boys significantly consumed more snacks than girls (13.34 ± 9.71 g vs. 8.13 ± 7.36 g; p < 0.001). Children who indicated greater preference for sweet snacks consumed more sweet snacks (r = 0.19; b = 2.05, p < 0.001) and total grams of total snacks (r = 0.18; b = 2.42, p = 0.004) but not salty snacks (pretzels). Consuming more sweet snacks was significantly associated with higher BMI percentiles (b = 0.55; p = 0.024). Conclusions: The findings suggest that a preference for sweet snacks is associated with EAH, and eating sweet snacks in the absence of hunger is related to higher BMI percentiles. Obesity prevention programs may focus on addressing eating sweet snacks in the absence of hunger starting in early childhood.

Whereas parents play an important role in shaping the home environment, it is unknown whether health-related parent-adolescent conversations may be associated with different health-promoting parenting practices, such as limiting adolescent mealtime media use in Hispanic families. For this cross-sectional analysis, Hispanic parents (n = 344; 40.4 ± 6.6 years; 89.2% female) of sixth- to eighth-grade adolescents self-reported the frequency of having health- or weight-related conversations with their adolescent child, and the frequency of adolescent mealtime media device use. Spearman's rank correlations were used to assess whether parent-adolescent health-related conversations are associated with mealtime media device use by adolescents. Over 75% of parents reported having conversations about healthy eating and being physically active at least a few times per week. Fewer parents reported having frequent weight-related conversations. Frequency of mealtime media use was low, except for television/movie watching (only 30% of parents reported their child rarely/never watching television during family meals). Having conversations related to the adolescent weighing too much was correlated with the mealtime use of television (r = .207; p < .001), cellphones (r = .134; p = .018), and headphones for music listening (r = .145; p = .010). Conversations about exercising to lose weight were correlated with television/movie watching during mealtimes (r = .129; p = .035). Findings suggest the co-occurrence of less health-promoting parenting behaviors, such as focusing on weight-related conversations and allowing the use of media devices during mealtimes. Focusing on health- rather than weight-related parent-adolescent conversations and implementing mealtime media use rules may have the potential to shape a home food environment which ultimately could improve an adolescent's overall health outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Parents play a significant role in adolescent health behaviors; however, few nutrition interventions for Hispanic adolescents involve parents. This study assessed the effects of a 10-week parenting intervention simultaneously targeting nutrition and substance use prevention. Hispanic parent/6th–8th-grade adolescent dyads (n = 239) were randomized to Families Preparing the New Generation Plus (FPNG+; nutrition/substance use prevention), FPNG (substance use prevention only), or Realizing the American Dream (RAD; academic success control). Surveys assessed diet, alcohol use, substance use intentions, and substance use norms at baseline (T1), immediately post-intervention (T2), and at 16 weeks post-intervention (T3). Latent change modeling assessed diet changes; adolescent substance use outcomes were assessed using effect sizes. Among adolescents, those in FPNG+ increased fruit (+0.32 cup equivalents, p = 0.022) and fiber intake (+1.06 g, p = 0.048) and did not change added sugars intake at T2; those in FPNG and RAD reduced their intake of fruit and fiber (p < 0.05 for both). FPNG+ parents marginally increased fruit/vegetable intake (+0.17 cup equivalents, p = 0.054) and increased whole grains intake (+0.25-ounce equivalents, p < 0.05), in contrast to the reduction among RAD and FPNG parents (p < 0.05). Reductions in added sugar intake at T2 were greater among FPNG and FPNG+ parents relative to RAD parents (p < 0.05). FPNG+ and FPNG had comparable substance use outcomes (i.e., both had lower alcohol use and intentions to use substances relative to RAD). Engaging parents in a nutrition and substance use prevention parenting intervention yielded positive changes in dietary intake and maintained substance use prevention outcomes among their adolescent children.

Significant human gut microbiome changes during adolescence suggest that microbial community evolution occurs throughout important developmental periods including the transition to college, a typical life phase of weight gain. In this observational longitudinal study of 139 college freshmen living in on-campus dormitories, we tracked changes in the gut microbiome via 16S amplicon sequencing and body weight across a single academic year. Participants were grouped by weight change categories of gain (WG), loss (WL), and maintenance (WM). Upon assessment of the community structure, unweighted and weighted UniFrac metrics revealed significant shifts with substantial variation explained by individual effects within weight change categories. Genera that positively contributed to these associations with weight change included Bacteroides, Blautia, and Bifidobacterium in WG participants and Prevotella and Faecalibacterium in WL and WM participants. Moreover, the Prevotella/Bacteroides ratio was significantly different by weight change category, with WL participants displaying an increased ratio. Importantly, these genera did not display co-dominance nor ease of transition between Prevotella- and Bacteroides-dominated states. We further assessed the overall taxonomic variation, noting the increased stability of the WL compared to the WG microbiome. Finally, we found 30 latent community structures within the microbiome with significant associations with waist circumference, sleep, and dietary factors, with alcohol consumption chief among them. Our findings highlight the high level of individual variation and the importance of initial gut microbiome community structure in college students during a period of major lifestyle changes. Further work is needed to confirm these findings and explore mechanistic relationships between gut microbes and weight change in free-living individuals.