Publications by authors named "J Kegel"

Introduction: Americans have increased their intake of food away from home, which is lower in quality and higher in calories than food prepared at home. The increase of operations that serve food also impacts the military nutrition environment-including all foods, beverages, and dietary supplements available to the military community-and its role in nutritional fitness.

Methods: As part of a pilot study, 5 military installations used the online Military Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool to evaluate their local food landscape.

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Self-assessments are commonly used to track Army readiness in specialized communities, but they are rarely analyzed for reliability and predictive validity. Before introducing new assessments, existing ones should be reevaluated. We examined the Global Assessment Tool (GAT), an annual Army-required self-assessment with multiple psychosocial and health behavior short scales.

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Introduction: Chronic pain and associated interference with daily activities are common in the military and impact Force readiness. Chronic pain affects one-third of service members and is a leading cause of medical non-readiness (MNR) in the military. Research suggests that underlying psychological mechanisms related to trait coping styles and pain interference (PI) affect functional outcomes, but little research exists examining this relationship within an Army population.

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The inclusion of omega-3 fatty acids in our dietary intake is important for performance and recovery and may reduce the risk of various health issues. Studies have shown the omega-3 fatty acid status of US service members is low. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether offering fish and omega-3-enhanced foods would increase the Omega-3 Index (O3I).

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To describe health-related behaviors or indicators associated with overall health and well-being using the Global Assessment Tool (GAT), a health behavior and psychosocial questionnaire completed annually by US Army personnel. We analyzed GAT responses from 2014 to 2018, consisting of 367 000 to 449 000 respondents per year. We used generalized estimating equations to predict the presence of each health behavior or indicator, aggregated by year and stratified on various demographics.

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