Portable EEG in groups shows increased brain coupling to strong health messages.

Health messages are core building blocks of public health efforts. Neuroscientific measures offer insights into how target audiences receive health messages. To move towards real-world applications, however, challenges regarding costs, lab restraints, and slow data acquisition need to be addressed.

A matter of the metric? Sugar content overestimation is less pronounced in sugar cubes versus grams.

To make healthy food choices, consumers need to be aware of the sugar content of foods. Units act as an environmental cue that might influence sugar content estimation accuracy. The present study (1) tested whether estimations of sugar content are more accurate in sugar cubes vs grams, (2) compared accuracy of sugar content to estimations of the foods' weight and energy content, and (3) investigated gender, education, and body mass index as potential correlates.

An mHealth Intervention Promoting Physical Activity and Healthy Eating in a Family Setting (SMARTFAMILY): Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Numerous smartphone apps are targeting physical activity (PA) and healthy eating (HE), but empirical evidence on their effectiveness for the initialization and maintenance of behavior change, especially in children and adolescents, is still limited. Social settings influence individual behavior; therefore, core settings such as the family need to be considered when designing mobile health (mHealth) apps.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a theory- and evidence-based mHealth intervention (called SMARTFAMILY [SF]) targeting PA and HE in a collective family-based setting.

Eating After Acute Psychosocial Stress in Healthy Men and Women: Sex Differences and Endocrine Mechanisms.

Context: Overweight and obesity have become a major health burden with a higher prevalence of obesity in women than in men. Mental stress has been discussed to play a role in this context.

Objective: We investigated endocrine mechanisms underlying eating after acute psychosocial stress and potential sex differences therein.

Perspective: A Conceptual Framework for Adaptive Personalized Nutrition Advice Systems (APNASs).

Nearly all approaches to personalized nutrition (PN) use information such as the gene variants of individuals to deliver advice that is more beneficial than a generic "1-size-fits-all" recommendation. Despite great enthusiasm and the increased availability of commercial services, thus far, scientific studies have only revealed small to negligible effects on the efficacy and effectiveness of personalized dietary recommendations, even when using genetic or other individual information. In addition, from a public health perspective, scholars are critical of PN because it primarily targets socially privileged groups rather than the general population, thereby potentially widening health inequality.

Traditional and modern eating in older adults: a comparison between an urban and rural sample from Gujarat, Western India.

Background: The present study aimed to investigate how often and to what degree older adults living in an area of Gujarat, Western India, enact traditional and modern eating behaviors. Specifically, we aimed to determine which facets of traditional eating are enacted rarely and which facets of modern eating are enacted often. Moreover, we hypothesized that urban older adults show a higher level of modern eating behaviors than rural older adults.

[Perspective Paper "Future Prevention Research" - Current and Future Coordinated Research on Prevention and Health Promotion].

From 2014 to 2022, the BMBF has funded five research networks in prevention research and health promotion that are also jointly coordinated (Research Network Primary Prevention and Health Promotion, www.fp2g.net).

Similar or different? Comparing food cultures with regard to traditional and modern eating across ten countries.

Food cultures can play a role in health and well-being. This raises the questions of whether nation boundaries unite the food cultures of different regions and ethnic groups, what characterises food cultures from very different parts of the world, and what similarities and differences exist. The present study aimed to investigate these questions with regard to eating traditions and modern eating practices.

Individual and collective protective responses during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 10 different countries: Results from the EUCLID online survey.

Background: In times of unprecedented infectious disease threats, it is essential to understand how to increase individual protective behaviors and support for collective measures. The present study therefore examines factors associated with individual and collective pathways.

Methods: Data was collected through an online survey from 4483 participants (70.

Nudging sugar portions: a real-world experiment.

Background: Sugar overconsumption is a major contributor to overweight and obesity, with daily consumption greatly exceeding the WHO's recommendations. The aim of the present study was to determine whether using a functionally modified sugar shaker as a food environment nudge could be an effective means to reduce the sugar used in hot beverages.

Methods: Sugar shakers were functionally modified to reduce the amount of sugar in each pour by 47%.

The four weeks before lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: a weekly serial cross-sectional survey on risk perceptions, knowledge, public trust and behaviour, 3 to 25 March 2020.

BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, public perceptions and behaviours have had to adapt rapidly to new risk scenarios and radical behavioural restrictions.AimTo identify major drivers of acceptance of protective behaviours during the 4-week transition from virtually no COVID-19 cases to the nationwide lockdown in Germany (3-25 March 2020).MethodsA serial cross-sectional online survey was administered weekly to ca 1,000 unique individuals for four data collection rounds in March 2020 using non-probability quota samples, representative of the German adult population between 18 and 74 years in terms of age × sex and federal state (n = 3,910).

The Role of Personal Risk Experience-An Investigation of Health and Terrorism Risk Perception in Germany and Israel.

The present study examined the relationship between risk experience and risk perceptions in relation to the target (risk to the self vs. others) and for two different types of risk: acute risks (i.e.

Barriers to and Facilitators for Using Nutrition Apps: Systematic Review and Conceptual Framework.

Background: Nutrition apps are effective in changing eating behavior and diet-related health risk factors. However, while they may curb growing overweight and obesity rates, widespread adoption is yet to be achieved. Hence, profound knowledge regarding factors motivating and hindering (long-term) nutrition app use is crucial for developing design guidelines aimed at supporting uptake and prolonged use of nutrition apps.

Pessimistic health and optimistic wealth distributions perceptions in Germany and the UK: evidence from an online-survey.

Background: Inequalities in health and wealth distributions are becoming pressing societal problems in many countries. How these inequalities are perceived and to what degree perceptions are aligned with actual distributions, is important for trust in public health services, social and economic policies, and policymakers. This study aims to assess perceived and desired levels of inequality in health and wealth in Germany and the UK.

Stigmatization of Chinese and Asian-looking people during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

Background: The outbreak and global spread of COVID-19 was accompanied by an increase in reports of stigmatization of Chinese and Asian-looking people. The behavioral immune system provides a framework for stigmatization in response to infectious disease threats. Specifically, stigmatization might increase with rising levels of infectious disease threat.

Contagious Health Risk and Precautionary Social Distancing.

Background: Since humans are social animals, social relations are incredibly important. However, in cases of contagious diseases such as the flu, social contacts also pose a health risk. According to prominent health behavior change theories, perceiving a risk for one's health motivates precautionary behaviors.

Lack of reassurance after unexpected positive health risk feedback - an analysis of temporal dynamics.

Introduction: How do people receive unexpected positive health risk information? While common motivational accounts predict acceptance, consistency accounts such as the cue-adaptive reasoning account (CARA) predict a 'lack of reassurance'.

Objectives: We therefore tested (1) whether people prefer striving for positivity or retaining a sense of self-consistency ('lack of reassurance'), and (2) if there are systematic differences in short- and long-term reception, which would indicate temporal dynamics in processing.

Methods: As part of a longitudinal cohort study, participants of a community health screening (= 1,055) received their actual cholesterol readings.

[Evidence-based primary prevention and health promotion: methods and procedures in 5 research consortia].

Between 2014 and 2022, the 5 German research networks AEQUIPA, CAPITAL4HEALTH, HLCA, PartKommPlus, and SMARTACT are investigating topics of primary prevention and health promotion with the aim of further deepening the evidence base in these areas. The work of the 5 research networks for primary prevention and health promotion is presented, analysed, and discussed from an internal perspective. A model of evidence-based public health serves as a structuring framework.

Memorable meals: The memory-experience gap in day-to-day experiences.

Research shows that retrospective memory is often more extreme than in-the-moment experiences. While investigations into this phenomenon have mostly focused on distinct, one-time experiences, we examined it with respect to recurring day-to-day experiences in the eating domain, focusing on variables of the snapshot model-i.e.

Investigating the Relationship between Perceived Meal Colour Variety and Food Intake across Meal Types in a Smartphone-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Although most people are aware of the health benefits of consuming sufficient amounts of fruit and vegetables, many do not adhere to current dietary recommendations. Recent studies have suggested meal colour variety as an intuitive cue for healthy and enjoyable lunch meal choices. The present study extends this research by testing the "colourful = healthy" association across meal types.

Dynamic Risk Perceptions in Times of Avian and Seasonal Influenza Epidemics: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Design.

Infectious diseases pose a serious threat to humans. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how accurately people perceive these risks. However, accuracy can be operationalized differently depending on the standard of comparison.

The Relation of Threat Level and Age With Protective Behavior Intentions During Covid-19 in Germany.

To contain the spread of Covid-19, engagement in protective behaviors across the population is of great importance. The present study investigated protective behavior intentions during the early phases of Covid-19 in Germany (February 2-April 3, 2020) as a function of threat level and age using data from 4,940 participants in the EUCLID project. Results indicated that the intention to engage in social distancing increased sharply with threat level.

Effects of a Collective Family-Based Mobile Health Intervention Called "SMARTFAMILY" on Promoting Physical Activity and Healthy Eating: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Numerous smartphone apps are targeting physical activity and healthy eating, but empirical evidence on their effectiveness for initialization and maintenance of behavior change, especially in children and adolescents, is still limited.

Objective: The aim of this study was to conceptualize a theory-based and evidence-based mHealth intervention called SMARTFAMILY (SF) that targets physical activity and healthy eating in a collective family-based setting. Subsequently, the app will be refined and re-evaluated to analyze additional effects of just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) and gamification features.

Preference for Intuition and Deliberation in Eating Decision-making: Scale validation and associations with eating behaviour and health.

Objectives: Two distinct lines of research separately regard either deliberately regulated eating or intuitive eating as most beneficial for health. The present research aims to integrate these seemingly contradictory findings by investigating the relationships between Preference for Intuition and Deliberation in Eating Decision-making (E-PID) and subjective and objective health-related parameters using a newly developed scale.

Design: Study 1: online survey; Study 2: cross-sectional community cohort sample.

Occurrence of and Reasons for "Missing Events" in Mobile Dietary Assessments: Results From Three Event-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment Studies.

Background: Establishing a methodology for assessing nutritional behavior comprehensively and accurately poses a great challenge. Mobile technologies such as mobile image-based food recording apps enable eating events to be assessed in the moment in real time, thereby reducing memory biases inherent in retrospective food records. However, users might find it challenging to take images of the food they consume at every eating event over an extended period, which might lead to incomplete records of eating events (missing events).