The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between household food inventories (HFI) and dietary recalls among Mexican-origin children (ages 6-11 years old) who reside in Texas border region colonias. Household food availability is a known influence upon children's diets; however, this population faces unique influences upon children's dietary intake and household food availability may not exhibit the same influence upon children's dietary intake that it does in other areas of the United States. This study utilized promotoras (community healthcare workers native to the Texas border region) to collect data from participants due to their rapport with residents of the community. These promotoras collected a series of surveys, HFI's and 24-hour dietary recalls with each mother-child dyad participant. Data from the HFI-s and 24-hour recalls were entered into the Nutrition Data System for Research (NDS-R) from the University of Minnesota and the nutrient profiles for each were analyzed. The HFI data was then adjusted for household composition to obtain a more accurate representation of what nutrients are available to each specific member of the household. After analysis, participant children reported living in households with 5.7 adults and children (range 3-10). All children participated in school breakfast and lunch programs. Age- and gender-specific body mass index (BMI) percentiles indicated that 42% were considered overweight or obese. Lower food security was associated with greater energy, total sugar, and added sugar intakes. The largest correlations between HFI's and 24-hour intakes were for total protein, total sugar, sodium, and added sugar. Sodium was the only nutrient with a significant correlation between household availability and children's dietary intake. HFI was independently associated with greater intake of sodium and lower intakes of total sugar and added sugar. Results show a relationship between household food availability and children's dietary intake. However, at the nutrient level, this association is only statistically significant for sodium and almost significant for total sugar. Colonia children are likely eating many meals outside of the home; the traditional HFI might not be useful in determining what foods are available for these children to eat.

The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of conducting multiple household food inventories over the course of 30 days to examine weekly food variability. Household food availability influences the foods individuals choose to consume; therefore, by assessing the home food environment a better understanding of what people are eating can be obtained. Methods of measuring home food availability have been developed and tested in recent years; however most of these methods assess food availability on one occasion only. This study aimed to capture "usual" availability by using multiple assessments. After the development and pre-testing of the 171-item home observation guide to determine the presence and amount of food items in the home (refrigerator, freezer, pantry, elsewhere), two trained researchers recruited a convenience sample of 9 households (44.4% minority), administered a baseline questionnaire (personal info, shopping habits, food resources, and food security), and conducted 5 in-home assessments (5-7 day interval) over a 30-day period. Each in-home assessment included shopping and fast food activities since the last assessment and an observational survey of types and amounts of foods present. The final in-home assessment included an audio recorded interview on food habits and beliefs. Complete data were collected from all 9 women (32.8 y +/- 6.0; 3 married; 4 +/- 1.6 adults/children in household; 4 SNAP; 6 food insecure) and their households. Weekly grocery purchases (place, amount, and purpose) use (frequency) varied from once (n=1) to every week (n=5); 4 used fast food 2-3 times/wk for 4 weeks. Quantity and types of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables varied by week and by family. The feasibility of conducting multiple in-home assessments was confirmed with 100% retention from all participants. This methodology is important in that it provided detailed information on intra-monthly variation in food availability. The findings suggest the inadequacy of a single measure to assess food availability in the home.

Klimatförändringen är en viktigt fråga som kräver insatser inom flera sektorer för att hållbara nivåer på växthusutsläppen ska kunna nås. En av dessa sektorer är livsmedelsindustrin där konsumtionen av livsmedel för en genomsnittlig svensk konsument utgör ca 25 % av de totala utsläppen. En förbättringsmöjlighet inom detta område är minskning av matsvinn. Denna studie fokuserar på hur ökad medvetenhet kring sitt inventarie av livsmedel inom hushåll kan bidra till minskat matsvinn samt hur man på bästa sätt kan designa ett system i detta syfte. För studien utvecklades ett digitalt inventariesystem i form av en uppkopplad skanner för inläsning av streckkoder samt en webbapplikation anpassad till mobila enheter där det aktuella inventariet presenteras tillsammans med en inköpslista. En testgrupp på åtta stycken deltagare fördelat på fyra hushåll fick under en två veckors lång period använda systemet. Efter studien fick de även delta på en intervju om deras upplevelse av- och motivation till att använda systemet, där kvalitativ data samlades in. Den grundläggande teorin bakom studien består primärt av The Behaviour Change Wheel som användes under designprocessen för det framtagna systemet då systemet skulle kräva en beteendeförändring. Resultatet visade en positiv inställning till systemet, där alla medverkande testpersoner ansåg att systemet skulle kunna bidra till minskat matsvinn i hushållen. Resultatet visade även att systemet underlättade kunskapsökning kring användarens inventarie av livsmedel. Det nya beteendet övergick till rutin hos majoriteten av testpersonerna och även fast en del nya funktioner och förbättringar önskades, kunde även majoriteten tänka sig att använda systemet i efterhand. Denna studie är dock i sig för kort för att kunna dra några konkreta slutsatser kring de bestående beteendeförändringar till användningen av systemet. / The climate change is an important issue that requires efforts in several sectors in order to achieve sustainable levels of greenhouse emissions. One of these sectors is the food industry, where the consumption of food for an average Swedish consumer constitutes about 25 % of the total emissions. An opportunity for improvement in this area is the reduction of food waste. This study focuses on how increased awareness of their inventory of household food can contribute to reduced food waste and how to best design a system for this purpose. For the study, a digital inventory system was developed in the form of a barcode scanner and a web application adapted to mobile units where the current inventory is presented together with a shopping list. A test group of eight participants divided into four households received a system during a two-week period. After the study, they also had to attend an interview about their experience of motivation to use the system, where qualitative data was collected. The basic theory behind the study consists primarily of The Behavior Change Wheel which was used during the design process of the system that were developed, since the system would require a behavioral change. The result showed a positive attitude towards the system, where all participating test persons considered that the system could contribute to reduced food waste in households. The result also showed that the system facilitated knowledge raising around the user's food inventory. The new behavior changed to routine with the majority of the test persons and even though some new functions and improvements were desired, the majority could also imagine using the system afterwards. However, this study is in itself too short to be able to draw any concrete conclusions about the permanent behavioral changes to the use of the system. / Smarta förvaringslösningar i framtidens kylskåp för minskat matsvinn

Bei der Bekämpfung von Lebensmittelabfällen steht die Nachhaltigkeit an erster Stelle. Aus Nachhaltigkeitsgesichtspunkten ist eine Ressourcen- und Lebensmittelverschwendung inakzeptabel. Das Forschungsziel ist die Reduzierung von Abfällen in Lebensmittelketten unter Berücksichtigung der Gesamtkosten in den Lagerstufen. In dem Promotionsvorhaben werden stufenübergreifende Lagerhaltungsstrategien auf Abfallquoten hin untersucht. Als Forschungsmethode wird die Simulation angewendet. Es werden ausschließlich Frischwaren mit dem Haltbarkeits- und Verfallsdatum betrachtet, da diese Warengruppe den größten Anteil von Abfällen ausmacht.

Klimatet har på senare tid blivit en av de mest omdiskuterade och viktigaste frågorna i samhället. Om Parisavtalets mål om att hålla den globala temperaturökningen under 2 grader skall lyckas, måste utsläppen av växthusgaser att minska. Det finns ett flertal sätt till att minska växthusgasutsläppen, och ett av sättet är med hjälp av ett minskat matsvinn från hushåll, vilket bland annat är något FN uppmärksammat bland sina 17 hållbarhetsmålet satta till år 2030. I dagsläget slängs en ohållbar mängd mat, och en av anledningarna är av bortglömde matlådor vars innehåll har behövt slängas på grund av att bäst före-datumet passerats. Den här studien kommer att undersöka om det går, med en framtagen intervention designad med utgångspunk i beteendeförädringsramverket The Behaviour Change Wheel, att uppmuntra till ett beteende för ett minskat matsvinn. Interventionen kommer att innefatta ett inläsningssystem för matlådor, vars syfte är att hjälpa dess användare att hålla koll på sina matlådor. Sex deltagare blev rekryterade till studien utifrån en enkät, och fick under en tvåveckorsperiod testa på att använda inläsningssystemet. Resultatet skulle indikera på att inläsningssystemet fungerade som tänkt för vissa av deltagarna, men att den för andra deltagare inte gjorde det. Detta berodde emellertid inte på systemet i sig, utan istället till vilken grad deltagaren hade använt matlådor. / The climate debate has recently become one of the most discussed and important topics. If the Paris Agreement's goal of keeping the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees, the reduction of greenhouse gas emission is vital. There are several ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the ways is throughout a reduced food waste. This is also a topic that the UN has taken notice of among its 17 sustainable development goals set by 2030. At present, an unsustainable amount of food is thrown away, and one of the reasons is because of forgotten food boxes whose content has had to be thrown away because the expiration date has passed. This study will investigate if it is possible, with an intervention designed based on The Behavior Change Wheel framework, to encourages a behavior for a reduced food waste. The intervention will consist of a scanning system for food boxes, whose purpose is to help its user to keep track of their food boxes. Six participants were recruited to the study based on a questionnaire and got to test the scanning system for a two-week period. The result would indicate that the system worked as intended for some of the participants, but not for some others. This was not due to the system itself, but instead to what extent the participant had used food boxes.

Miljö- och klimatfrågor är bland de största frågor vi står inför idag. Dessa frågor behandlar bland annat matproduktion och matsvinn. Enligt Naturvårdsverket står livsmedelshantering för 20 – 25% avden totala klimatpåverkan i Sverige. 75% av detta är matavfallinnehållande en stor del onödigt matsvinn från de privata hushållen. Som individer har vi därför en stor möjlighet till att påverka detta. Denna studie behandlar en kvalitativ undersökning av en lågteknologisk knapps möjligheter till att skapa ett beteende att inventera sitt kylskåp för att reducera det privata matsvinnet. Undersökningen innefattar utformning, design och framställning av en lågteknologisk knapp samt dess användarupplevelse och funktion i praktiken. Knappen är utformad med hjälp av en analys inom beteendeförändringsramverket Behavioural Change Wheel. Knappen testades på 10 studenter under tre veckors tid för att sedan utvärdera knappens påverkan. Användandet utvärderades genom att undersöka knappens möjligheter till en beteendeförändringkring inventering av kylskåp. Knappen tilldelades och kopplades samman med en rad funktioner för att underlätta och skapa ett beteende till att inventera: En lampa som lös två gånger per vecka, en text på knappen som löd “time to save the world.”, tillhandahållande av bakgrundsinformation gällande klimatfrågan, instruktioner gällande hur en inventering skulle utföras samt den fysiska närvaron av knappen. Resultatet pekar mot att en förändring i beteende skett underundersökningsperioden men resultaten från enkätsvaren är inte tillräckliga för att med statistisk signifikans bekräfta om knappen med funktioner skapat ett beteende. Knappens olika funktioner graderades av deltagarna i utvärderingen och utifrån dessa svar visade det sig att lampans påminnelsefunktion samt knappens fysiska närvaro hade störst påverkan till att en inventering utfördes. / Climate change and the environmental situation is two of the biggest challenges we face both locally and globally. Food production and food swill is a big part of these challenges. 20-25% of the total climate footprint in Sweden is caused by food production and handling according to Naturvårdsverket. 75% of this is food swill that contains a lot of unnecessary food waste produced in the private household. This gives individuals and households a great opportunity to reduce these numbers and affect the total climate footprint. This is a qualitative study investigating and evaluating the possibility of a low-tech buttons effect on individuals behaviour on keeping stock of the content in their refrigerator and possibly reducing their food waste. The study describes the process of creating and designing a low-tech button and an evaluation of the participants thoughts and experience with the button. The button is designed with an analysis of the behaviour change framework Behavioural Change Wheel as well as implementation of different behaviour change techniques to optimize the behaviour change and create a habit of keeping stock of the content of the refrigerator. Ten students used the button for three weeks before evaluating its effect on their behaviour and analysing if they perceived a reduction of their food waste. Five functions where assigned to the button; A LED that shone twice a week, a text engraved on the button that read “time to save the world.”, they were assigned background information regarding the environment and food waste, instructions on how to perform a stock-check and the physical presence of the button itself. The results of the study indicates a change in the participants behaviour during the time of using the button, but the results was not sufficient enough to confirm a change with statistical significance. All the functionalities was graded by the participants of the study and it shows that the reminder from the LED as well as the physical presence of the button was the two functions with the most impact on why the stock keeping was performed.

Food waste has become a serious matter which negatively impacts the environment worldwide. This raises the issue of managing food waste more efficiently, which in many cases can be aided with technology, and there has been previous research suggesting possible solutions. On a household level, food waste could be better managed by providing individuals with visual representations or summaries of how much they waste, and hopefully motivating them to waste less. However, typicalcharts used for visualizing data often fail to motivate users. Abstract visualizations might have a better chance at doing so. The focus of this master thesis is to design and develop a responsive web application which helps users keep track of their food purchases. Using the application, users can create product lists and perform two actions on products: consuming and wasting. The app prototype aims to increase an individual’s motivation towards wasting less food by providing a virtual “tree” visualization with similar features to a real tree such as branches and leaves. However, instead of growing depending on its’ environment like a real tree would, this virtual “tree” representation would grow based on the user’s actions: subject to how much food is consumed or wasted, the virtual tree will grow further or gradually start withering. A user study was conducted which involved a questionnaire surveying the general attitudes and practices of the participants regarding their household food waste, which was sent to participants both before and after using the resulting prototype.This enabled for relevant comparisons to be made between the user attitudes before and after trying the prototype. Furthermore, at the end of study, two user groups could be identified: most active participants and less active participants. This classification was made based on the activity logs gathered from the application database, where “most active” refers to participants that used the application regularly during the evaluation period and “less active” means the participants with very little or no activity recorded in the database. A final questionnaire was developed in two variants for collecting user feedback, tailored for the two groups identified: most active participants and less active participants. These surveys were shared with a group of participants who had agreed on using the resulting prototype for a period of at least two weeks. The results of the user study suggested that users were positive to the concept of the prototype and most users showed a keen interest in future improvements of the application. It is hoped that this work makes a relevant contribution to the areas of household food waste management, digital inventories, and web technologies, specifically web applications.

No description available.

Household food waste levels pose a considerable problem in terms of sustainability. Food stock management applications for smartphones are interventions that support people in planning and keeping an overview of their food stock in order to reduce food waste. So far mainly their usability and effectiveness for reduction of food waste have been researched in HCI. This study aimed at investigating how these applications are being integrated into people’s food practices, and how their features contributed to the integration. In a three-week long field study seven participants used one of two applications in their daily lives. Through interviews and diary entries it was observed that some people integrated the applications into their food practices to replace other actions like checking one’s food stock. New connections to the food practices were created through expiration reminders and providing means to check the food stock from a distance. Reminders were seen as helpful even if not always necessary and can be seen as an opportunity to further support the integration process. The main issues for the integration were the high-effort adding processes and remembering to update the inventory after consumption.