This thesis examines the caloric values of meals served in a college dormitory.

4 pp. / Weight management is more than just cutting back on carbohydrate or fat. Controlling calories is key to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. This publication reviews how calories count, not matter what type of diet you choose to follow.

Obesity and being overweight have become growing concerns due to their association with many diseases, such as type II diabetes, several types of cancer and heart disease. Thus, obesity treatments have been the focus of a large number of recent studies. Because of these studies, researchers have found that the treatment of obesity and being overweight requires constant monitoring of the patient’s diet. Therefore, measuring food intake each day is considered an important step in the success of a healthy diet. Measuring daily food consumption for obese patients is one of the challenges in obesity management studies. Countless recent studies have suggested that using technology like smartphones may enhance the under-reporting issue in dietary intake consumption. In this thesis, we propose a Food Recognition System (FRS) for calories and nutrient values assumption. The user employs the built-in camera of the smartphone to take a picture of any food before and after eating. The system then processes and classifies the images to detect the type of food and portion size, then uses the information to estimate the number of calories in the food. The estimation and calculation of the food volume and amount of calories in the image is an essential step in our system. Via special approaches, the FRS can estimate the food volume and the existing calories with a high level of accuracy. Our experiment shows high reliability and accuracy of this approach, with less than 15% error.

The attentional system has evolved to be proficient at responding to the presence of food cues, particularly to those which are energy dense (Berthoud, 2007). Individuals who pay heightened attention to food stimuli within their feeding environment are likely to be motivated to overeat as a consequence. This current thesis presents 6 experiments which explore the extent to which paying enhanced attention to food cues in the environment influences eating behaviour. Experiment 1 established that individuals who are responsive to the pull of food cues, sensitive to reward and have high disinhibition are at risk of developing obesity. Experiment 2 demonstrated that individuals with high disinhibition were quicker to respond to high calorie food stimuli shown on a visual dot probe task. Whereas experiment 3 indicated that attentional retraining (learning to attend or avoid food stimuli on a visual dot probe task) could successfully manipulate food processing bias and calorie intake. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated the extent to which reward can determine the incentive salience of cues. Novel cues which had been paired with chocolate reward during a training task were found to elicite greater attention both at a behavioural and neurophysiological level. Finally Experiment 6 demonstrated that these trained cues could successfully manipulate craving. These results are discussed in terms of theoretical perspectives of attentional bias and the wider implications for understanding overeating.

Obesity and being overweight have become growing concerns due to their association with many diseases, such as type II diabetes, several types of cancer and heart disease. Thus, obesity treatments have been the focus of a large number of recent studies. Because of these studies, researchers have found that the treatment of obesity and being overweight requires constant monitoring of the patient’s diet. Therefore, measuring food intake each day is considered an important step in the success of a healthy diet. Measuring daily food consumption for obese patients is one of the challenges in obesity management studies. Countless recent studies have suggested that using technology like smartphones may enhance the under-reporting issue in dietary intake consumption. In this thesis, we propose a Food Recognition System (FRS) for calories and nutrient values assumption. The user employs the built-in camera of the smartphone to take a picture of any food before and after eating. The system then processes and classifies the images to detect the type of food and portion size, then uses the information to estimate the number of calories in the food. The estimation and calculation of the food volume and amount of calories in the image is an essential step in our system. Via special approaches, the FRS can estimate the food volume and the existing calories with a high level of accuracy. Our experiment shows high reliability and accuracy of this approach, with less than 15% error.

Cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) are legumes widely consumed in developing countries. Because cowpeas are an important source of proteins, calories and vitamins, they have the potential to alleviate protein-energy malnutrition. However, the consumption of cowpeas is impaired by the hard-to-cook (HTC) defect, which develops when cowpeas are stored at high temperature and humidity conditions. HTC cowpeas require extended time to cook and have decreased protein, starch, vitamin availability and poor textural quality. The extended cooking time and poor textural quality reduce consumer preference and acceptability. Soaking cowpeas in water or in a solution containing monovalent cations have been used by other researchers to reduce the cooking time of normal and HTC cowpeas, while micronization has been used to reduce the cooking time of normal cowpeas. Hence preconditioning in water or in a solution containing monovalent (Na+) cations in combination with micronization, could have the potential to help in alleviating the HTC phenomenon in legume seeds, especially cowpeas. This study was undertaken in two parts. The first part consisted of inducing the hard-tocook (HTC) defect and determining its effect on cooking and physicochemicalcharacteristics of cowpeas. The second part consisted of attempting to alleviate the HTC defect in cowpeas by pre-conditioning cowpeas in water or in a solution with monovalent (Na+) cations and its combination with micronization. The effect of these treatments on cooking and physicochemical characteristics of normal and HTC cowpeas were studied. Storing cowpeas at high temperature and high relative humidity, increased the cooking time of cowpeas (Mogwe-o-Kgotsheng) from 89 to more than 270 min. The increase in the cooking time was associated with reduced pectin solubility, which was coincident with a decrease in phytic acid content and an increase in phytase activity. According to the “phytate-divalent cations-pectins” theory, at adverse storage conditions, phytase probably hydrolysed phytate to release divalent cations which migrated to the middle lamella to bind with pectins, reducing their solubility. Because of the reduced pectin solubility of HTC cowpeas, the hardness of cooked seeds increased, the degree of splitting reduced and water absorbed during cooking consequently reduced as compared with normal cowpeas. This research supports the “phytate-divalent cations-pectins” as an important mechanism to explain the HTC-defect in legume seeds. From a practical standpoint, pre-conditioning cowpeas in water on its own was effective in reducing the cooking time of normal cowpeas from 89 to 44 min. This coincided with an improvement of pectin solubility, degree of splitting and decreased hardness. For HTC cowpeas, a combination of pre-conditioning in a solution containing monovalent (Na+) cations and micronization was needed to optimally reduce the cooking time from more than 270 min to 59 min. This coincided with an improvement of pectin solubility, degree of splitting and decrease in the hardness of cooked cowpeas. Pre-conditioning cowpeas in water induced the solubilization of pectins in the middle lamella of normal and HTC cowpeas. Pre-conditioning cowpeas in a solution with monovalent (Na+) cations improved pectin solubility due to the solubilization effect of water as well as a conversion of insoluble pectins to soluble pectins by monovalent (Na+) cations. Micronization improved pectin solubility further by breaking pectin molecules into lower and more soluble fractions, probably via the β-elimination reaction. Micronization also decreased the hardness of cooked seeds and increased the degree of splitting for both normal and HTC cowpeas. However, the reduction in hardness and increase in the degree of splitting were more pronounced in normal than in HTC cowpeas, probably becausemore divalent cations were bound to the pectins of HTC cowpeas. For normal cowpeas, the improvement of pectin solubility, decrease in texture of cooked seeds and increase in the splitting as influenced by micronization was reflected in the increase of the amount of water absorbed during cooking, which could have contributed to the reduction in the cooking time. However, for HTC this was not the case as the water absorbed during cooking decreased. The reduction in the amount of water absorbed during cooking could be associated with protein denaturation during storage at adverse conditions and during micronization. The improvement of pectin solubility was at higher levels when all the treatments were applied in HTC cowpeas than in normal cowpeas. However, this was not coincident with reduction in the cooking times. This suggests that factors (i.e. proteins, starch) other than pectin solubility could have contributed to the cooking time of HTC cowpeas. Pre-conditioning cowpeas in a solution with monovalent (Na+) cations in combination with micronization has a definite potential to help alleviate the HTC defect in cowpeas.</P. Copyright 2011, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Salvador, BDV 2007, Improvement in the cooking and physico-chemical characteristics of hard-to-cook cowpeas by pre-conditioning and micronization, MSc(Agric) dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08042008-132413 / > E846/gm / Dissertation (MSc(Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Food Science / unrestricted

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Research suggests declines in physical activity may occur after age 12. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between adolescent physical activity, BMI, and nutrition. Adolescents, ages 12-17 (N = 223), wore pedometers for 11 consecutive days and completed a nutrition survey, the Youth Adolescent Questionnaire. Activity levels did not differ among the ages of 12-17 year old adolescents, and boys were more active than girls. There was a low, but significant relationship between BMI and physical activity levels for both boys and girls. Energy intake was not related to BMI or physical activity levels in boys or girls.

Hypothesis: "By an environmental change in high school vending machines, making water available, students will choose water over the sugar sweetened sodas." This document highlights a case study analysis of vendor-provided refill data for forty-five beverage vending machines at two campus sites in one high school district in 2003 and 2004. The innovative study and publicized negotiated soda contract of a 50:50 (healthy to unhealthy) beverage ratio stipulation became the “Win-Win-WEAN” compromise, in which exposure to healthier beverage options for students might prove to provide the same income opportunity for the school district. An overview of the political climate in California leading to this local advocacy for reduced availability of sodas on school campuses, which began in 1999 before the passage of Senate Bill 19- Pupil Nutrition, Health Achievement Act of October 2001 (SB-19) is also addressed. The quagmire to generate and implement this unique pilot of a 5-year contract stipulating a 50:50 ratio, with strategic placement of qualified healthy beverages in the top slots of the 45 machines, is discussed to give context of the beverage industry practices. The ratio stipulation was intended to target one significant area of empty calories in students’ daily environments in attempt to help reverse the unprecedented obesity epidemic among adolescents. The agreement voted upon by the Santa Maria Joint Union School District’s Board of Trustees in a public meeting, as noted in the minutes of August 14, 2002, was not implemented as originally approved and thus a series of negotiation meetings began, prompting this data analysis. The 50:50 ratio, per SB-19, was not achieved during the performance life of the contract between the school district and the beverage vendor. School district administration fiscal year-end data in March 2005 confirmed that the hypothesis of a net profit sales quota of $60,000 was rejected, as there was a $7,300 shortfall. The data analyzed did determine that the highest selling, single beverage productwas un-flavored (plain) water with a 65% share. This information was contrary to the beverage vendor and school district business superintendents’ pre-conceived ideas that water in the machines would cause them to lose money. In reality water was the highest revenue generator beverage. The $60,000 minimum guaranteed annual commission, which was in actuality a sales quota projection, was still acknowledged as a contractual commitment by the vendor so no actual deficiency in fund payments was experienced by the school district. The profit margin for both water and other products was 40 cents per can. The data analysis showed that water was indeed the highest selling beverage regardless of equipment malfunction, restocking failures, and misrepresentation of drinks as healthy by vending machine placement and clever advertising with label changes for the same beverage. When water was included in the vending machines, students responded with immediate purchasing of water, demonstrating the 4th of five distinct stages of readiness for behavior change as “Action” following the principles of Drs’ Prochaska and Di Clemete’s Trans-Theoretical model. This model outlines different levels toward sustained behavior change and typical timelines of each relative stage of change. Keywords: beverage consumption, sodas, obesity, empty calories.

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