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Dear Colleagues,

The nutrition transition phenomenon is emerging in adolescents that move away from regional food habits, such as a Mediterranean-style diet, and instead adopt a Western diet or other unhealthy eating habits, such as skipping meals. Unhealthy eating habits drive malnutrition in both excess and defect, favoring and triggering non-communicable chronic diseases. Promoting a healthy lifestyle and healthy eating in adolescents and young adults is a challenge because of the psychological nature of this age demographic to search for an identity within society. Peer pressure, social pressures, and urban or rural environment could increase the risk of adopting unhealthy eating habits. On the other hand, adolescence is an age in which body growth and maturation is ongoing, and some characteristics, such as pubertal insulin resistance and tissue growth, could be more affected by an altered nutrition in composition and caloric content. Furthermore, the brain is completing its maturation and altered food behaviors could determine the future diet adopted by adolescents.

This Special Issue is dedicated to identifying strategies to improve healthy eating in adolescents. It aims to provide new insights in this age in:

Epidemiological data regarding the promotion of healthy eating habits to prevent malnutrition for defect and excess;
Public, or local educational programs for the target population;
Socio-economic, environmental, ecological, cultural and psychological determinants of healthy eating;
Tailored strategies for lifestyle in adolescents;
Healthy eating preferences among gender;
Metabolic and food intake effects related to healthy and unhealthy eating habits;
Nutrients and food effects on healthy eating;
The role of school, food industry, marketing and policy makers;
Peer and environment pressure;
Original papers, reviews, and meta-analyses will be accepted.

Dr. Flavia Prodam
Prof. Dr. Maria Felicia Faienza
Dr. Francesca Romana Lenzi
Guest Editors

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Keywords

lifestyle
wellbeing
eating habits
nutrition transition
inequalities
obesity
education
inequalities
food culture

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10 pages, 277 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development and Evaluation of an e-Book for Bone Health and Osteoporosis Education in Adolescents

by Nur Filzah Insyirah Mohd Azmi, Muhammad Hafiz Aznul Hisham and Nor Aini Jamil

Nutrients 2023, 15(8), 1899; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15081899 - 14 Apr 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1673

Abstract

Achieving optimum peak bone mass during adolescence is crucial for lifetime bone health. This study is aimed at developing and assessing an e-book designed for adolescent bone health knowledge and osteoporosis education. A needs assessment was conducted among 43 adolescents, aged 13–16 years, living in urban areas in Malaysia to determine their needs and preference for health educational material. The researchers also searched for relevant guidelines and articles regarding adolescent bone health. Subsequently, an e-book was developed based on the needs assessment and literature search. Five expert panelists (mean work experience = 11.3 years) validated the e-book contents and assessed its understandability and actionability using the Patient Educational Materials Assessment Tool for Audio-Visual Material (PEMAT-A/V). The internet (72.1%), parents (44.2%), television (41.9%), and teachers (39.5%) were the top four sources of health information among the respondents. Magazines (4.6%) and newspapers (11.6%) were the least preferred resources. Most adolescents were interested in cartoon-themed educational materials, and they perceived that including a short video, quiz, and infographic in the educational material would make it much more interactive for users. The developed e-book includes seven infographic chapters, a link to a quiz, and a summary video. The topics cover basic information on bones and the formation and resorption processes, osteoporosis and its risk factors, key nutrients for bone health (calcium and vitamin D), along with their sources and recommended amounts, physical activity and exercise for bone health, and tips for healthy lifestyle practices for bone health. All chapters and the video were rated with a median score of 100% for understandability and actionability, respectively. Some of the comments received from evaluators included that the e-book made good use of infographics, was easy to understand and interesting, and contained well-organized content. Some suggestions for improvement included adding take-home messages relevant to the topic, using colors to highlight keywords, and narrating all points presented in the video. Overall, the newly developed e-book on adolescent bone health was highly rated by expert panelists. However, the acceptance and effectiveness of the e-book in increasing bone health and osteoporosis knowledge among adolescents are yet to be evaluated. The e-book could be used as one of the educational tools to promote bone health in adolescents. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Healthy Eating: Promote a Healthy Lifestyle among Adolescents)

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