Publications by authors named "Ximena Moratorio"
Objective: To assess the effects of nutritional warnings during the first month after the date of full compliance by the food industry in Uruguay in terms of citizen awareness, self-reported use and ability to understand nutritional information.
Design: The present work encompassed two online studies, conducted before (Study 1) and during the first month after the date of full compliance by the food industry (Study 2). An after-only design was used to assess awareness of the policy, exposure to nutritional warnings on food packages and self-reported use of warnings for making purchase decisions in Study 2.
Objective: To describe the magnitude and distribution of malnutrition in all forms (stunting, wasting, overweight and obesity) by level of education and socio-economic status (SES).
Design: Representative data from three national surveys were used: the socio-economic characteristics of Uruguayan households the 2012-2013; the Survey of Child Health, Nutrition and Development and the Survey of Chronic Disease Risks. We defined overweight, obesity, wasting/underweight and stunting/short stature according to WHO criteria.
Objective: To identify the food industry's arguments against front-of-package nutrition labels in Uruguay.
Methods: Content analysis and inductive coding were applied to the comments made by the food industry during the public consultation on the draft decree regulating the inclusion of front-of-package nutrition labels (warnings) in Uruguay.
Results: Most of the comments expressed concern about the high prevalence of obesity and noncommunicable diseases in the country and emphasized a commitment to implementing actions to help combat these health problems.
Objective: Nutritional warnings have recently been suggested as a simplified front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme to facilitate citizens' ability to identify unhealthful products and discourage their consumption. However, citizens' perspective on this policy is still under-researched. The objective of the present work was to study how citizens perceive nutritional warnings and to evaluate public support of this policy, with the goal of deriving recommendations for the design of policy measures accompanying the introduction of nutritional warnings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The current study aimed to assess Uruguayan consumers' accounts of their own need to change their dietary patterns, their intended changes and the barriers related to doing so, and to compare the intentions and barriers with the recommendations of the national dietary guidelines.
Design: An online survey with 2381 Uruguayan employed adults, aged between 18 and 65 years, 65 % females, was conducted. Participants had to answer two open-ended questions related to changes they could make in the foods they eat and/or the way in which they eat to improve the quality of their diet and the reasons why they had not implemented those changes yet.
Article Synopsis
- A study was conducted to understand how citizens perceive and behave regarding the new dietary guidelines in Uruguay, aiming to identify barriers and facilitators to adopting healthier eating habits.
- Twelve focus groups with 91 participants highlighted several barriers, including low value placed on cooking, unhealthy food preferences, social pressures, and market challenges, which hinder dietary changes.
- Facilitators discussed included the need for supportive policies to discourage unhealthy eating, more education on nutrition, and personal initiatives such as improving cooking skills and creating a supportive social environment.
Consumption of ultra-processed foods has been associated with low diet quality, obesity and other non-communicable diseases. This situation makes it necessary to develop educational campaigns to discourage consumers from substituting meals based on unprocessed or minimally processed foods by ultra-processed foods. In this context, the aim of the present work was to investigate how consumers conceptualize the term ultra-processed foods and to evaluate if the foods they perceive as ultra-processed are in concordance with the products included in the NOVA classification system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Uruguay is at an advanced stage of the epidemiologic transition; like other Latin American countries, it bears a nutritional double burden composed of undernutrition and overweight or obesity.
Objectives: The aim was to estimate whether a double burden of nutritional problems exists in Uruguay and to identify if governmental programs and policies for nutrition take this double burden into account.
Design: Existing studies were reviewed, and other data were processed specifically for the purpose of this article.