American journal of preventive medicine
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Health education programs for promoting a healthful diet have shown limited success in clinical trials. ⋯ The results suggest that it may be possible to change dietary behaviors in college students by focusing on social, ethical, cultural, and environmental issues related to food and food production.
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The Healthy Eating Index-2005 (HEI-2005), a tool designed to evaluate concordance with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, has been used to monitor the quality of foods consumed by Americans. Because the HEI-2005 is not tied to individual requirements and is scored on a per 1000 kcal basis, it can be used to assess the overall quality of any mix of foods. ⋯ Because the HEI-2005 can be applied to both environmental- and individual-level data, it provides a useful metric for studies linking data across various levels of the socioecologic framework of dietary behavior. The present findings suggest that new dietary guidance could target not only individuals but also the architects of our food environment.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Behavioral counseling and varenicline treatment for smoking cessation.
Smoking remains the primary preventable cause of death and illness in the U.S. Effective, convenient treatment programs are needed to reduce smoking prevalence. ⋯ Phone counseling had greater treatment advantage for early cessation and appeared to increase medication adherence, but the absence of differences at 6 months suggests that any of the interventions hold promise when used in conjunction with varenicline.
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Sports participation, though offering numerous developmental benefits for youths, has been associated with adolescent alcohol use. Differences also exist between men/boys and women/girls in both sports participation and patterns of alcohol-related behaviors, but there are few longitudinal investigations of this relationship. ⋯ Sports may represent an important and efficient context for selective interventions to prevent problem alcohol use and negative consequences of alcohol use among adolescents.
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Every 5 years for the past several decades, the USDHHS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have issued and updated the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which form the basis of federal nutrition policy and have shown remarkable consistency across various editions among the major themes. ⋯ Deliberate efforts on the part of policymakers, the agriculture sector, and the food industry are necessary to provide a supply of foods consistent with nutrition recommendations and to make healthy choices available to all.