“In our conversations with athletes, this was a very high priority and something that the athletes felt was a critical component in their performance capability,” Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the Olympic and Paralympic Committee leadership committee, said during a press briefing in June.
Healthy eating during pregnancy and the year after giving birth may be uncommon in the United States, suggests a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and other institutions. On a scale from “A” to “F,” study participants received a grade of “D” on a measure of healthy eating. However, eating habits remained stable during pregnancy and after, with scores changing little during the six times participants were questioned during the study. The authors concluded that their results suggest a need to improve diet quality during and after pregnancy.
The study was conducted by Leah Lipsky, Ph.D., of the NICHD Social and Behavioral Sciences Branch, and colleagues. It appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Background
Nutrition during and after pregnancy is important for the health of the parent and child. Research suggests that during and after pregnancy, most individuals consume too much fat and sugar and not enough fiber, vitamins, and minerals. However, few studies have assessed overall diet quality during and after pregnancy. Information on diet quality during and after pregnancy is needed to identify those at risk for inadequate nutrition and to develop interventions to help them.
Results
For the current study, researchers analyzed data from 383 participants in a previous study. During study visits, participants in a North Carolina health care system provided information on what they ate for the previous day during the first, second, and third trimesters of pregnancy and at 6 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months after giving birth.
Researchers scored participant responses according to the Healthy Eating Index, a measure of how closely someone’s diet adheres to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Healthy Eating Index gauges consumption of healthy foods such as fruit, vegetables, greens, legumes, and whole grains, as well as foods that should be consumed in moderation, such as refined grains, sodium, added sugars, and saturated fats. Healthy Eating Index scores range from 0 to 100 and are expressed in a graded approach, with 90 to 100 equivalent to an A, 80 to 89 equivalent to a B, 70 to 79 a C, and 60 to 69 a D.
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The group’s average was 61.4 during pregnancy and 61.7 in the year after pregnancy—both low Ds. The highest scores were seen in participants with a college degree (64.7 in pregnancy and 66.4 post pregnancy) and among non-Hispanic whites (64.7 in pregnancy and 66.4 post pregnancy). Participants’ scores were consistent throughout the study, with only minor variations between visits.
Significance
The authors noted that low diet quality scores were present among all groups in the study, which reflects an urgent need for widespread improvement.
First the Baltics, now Taiwan. This month saw the latest in a spate of incidents in which crucial undersea cables connecting U.S. allies have been damaged or severed.
Some have been cast as acts of sabotage, pinning blame on Russia and China amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
Early this month, Taiwan’s coast guard said it had intercepted the Xing Shun 39 — a Hong Kong-owned freighter carrying the Cameroonian and Tanzanian flags — after the Beijing-claimed island’s biggest telecom company, Chunghwa Telecom, alerted authorities that an international undersea cable had been damaged on Jan. 3.
A “preliminary assessment” suggested the damage might have been caused by the freighter, which “transited the area at the time of the incident,” the coast guard said.
With an average of about 200 cable faults a year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee, damage to undersea communications infrastructure is not uncommon. The majority is caused by ship anchors or fishing activity such as trawling, where heavy equipment is dragged across the seafloor.
But the Taiwanese government says this may have been an example of Chinese “gray-zone interference,” irregular military and non-military tactics that aim to wear down an opponent without engaging in an actual shooting war.
It also comes amid an uproar in Europe, where NATO is stepping up patrols of Baltic Sea cables that provide power and enable almost all intercontinental communication, including the internet.
In Helsinki on Tuesday, members of the defense bloc with access to the Baltic Sea agreed at a summit discussing regional security threats — including Russian cable sabotage — to deploy frigates, patrol aircraft and naval drones in the Baltic Sea to help protect critical infrastructure.
NATO members said they reserved the right to take action against ships suspected of posing a security threat as part of a broader action, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”, in response to a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The damage from the Jan. 3 incident did not disrupt communications in Taiwan, as the data was routed to other cables.
However, “if enough cables were cut you can potentially cause something as severe as an internet blackout,” said Ian Li Huiyuan, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “Especially for Taiwan’s case, since it’s an island and there’s no overland alternatives.”