School meal program in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam: reality and future plan.

The socio-economic status in Vietnam has developed during the past decades. People become busier for work, and thus they do not have enough time to prepare meal for their children. The school meal program, organized by Department of Education, was first implemented at a kindergarten in 1977, which has been extended to elementary school since 1980. Up to date, 100% of kindergarten and approximately 90% of elementary schools have school meal programs. The purposes of this program are to provide appropriate meals for students, and to serve as education and communication tool for students. About 90% of school meals are prepared in the school's kitchen and the rest are provided by food companies. The weekly menu provides approximately 30% of recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for students. To date, there has been is no official dietitian training school in Vietnam. The head of school kitchen, who is not dietitian, is required to participate in a short-term training course, where s/he learns basic nutrition, nutrition requirements and food hygiene and safety. The food companies, which provide meals to school, must be approved for the hygiene and safety condition by the Human Health Services Department of Ho Chi Minh City. In the next plan of national nutrition strategy, establishing dietitian training schools will be prioritized. In addition, the regular nutritional surveillance for school-aged students will be introduced in school system thus we can develop and evaluate the school meal program in terms of nutrients, food safety and nutrition education.

Reanalysis of the obesity-related attenuation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex response to a satiating meal using gyral regions-of-interest.

OBJECTIVE: The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPFC), which includes the inferior (IFG), middle (MFG), and superior (SFG) frontal gyri, has been implicated in satiation. Using a voxel-based approach, we previously identified an LDLPFC region (as reported as peak voxel) in which a reduced neuronal response to a meal was associated with obesity. In this study, we sought to determine which gyri in the LDLPFC best distinguished the neuronal responses to a meal using a different statistical approach. METHODS: We reanalyzed brain responses to a meal using the hypothesis-driven region-of-interest-based (ROI) approach. Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), a marker of neuronal activity in the LDLPFC and its 3 gyri, was acquired in 2 conditions (hunger and after the satiating meal) using (15)O-water positron emission tomography scans. rCBF was extracted and estimated using masks of the 3 gyri that were created in MRIcro and Statistical Parametric Mapping 5 software. RESULTS: Using the ROI approach, a satiation-related reduction in LDLPFC rCBF was observed in the obese (p = 0.04) and tended to be significantly greater than that in lean subjects (p = 0.07). The rCBF reduction was greater in the obese subjects than in the lean subjects in the left IFG (p = 0.03) and MFG (p = 0.004) after adjustment was made for age, sex, and number of voxels in these gyri, but not in the SFG (p = 0.5). CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with those obtained by the voxel-based approach in showing the association between obesity and a satiation-related reduction in LDLPFC activity. This LDLPFC response preferentially involves the IFG and MFG. We suggest that these brain regions could be targeted by new therapeutic interventions.

Study on factors of body image in Japanese and Vietnamese adolescents.

Over-concern about thinness, especially among young girls including adolescents, is common in Japan. Behind the problem, there is a complicated social phenomenon and an effective strategy is not known yet. In this study, we tried to find a clue by comparing body image between two countries which have different social backgrounds. Subjects were Japanese and Vietnamese junior high school students from 12 to 15 y old. Three schools each and 1-2 classes from each grade were randomly selected to involve 374 (boys 196, girls 178) and 714 (boys 352, girls 362), respectively, in Japan and Vietnam. Height and weight of subjects were measured and their satisfaction about their body shape and experience with dieting were asked by a questionnaire. Questions about their body image concerning their desire, liking of the opposite sex, own liking and health were answered by marking silhouettes. About 60% of Japanese thought that obese (silhouette 9) is unhealthy, while about 85% of Vietnamese thought that thinness (silhouette 1) is unhealthy. Most of the Japanese girls overestimated their body weight and were dissatisfied with their body shape and 78.3% wanted to lose weight. About 30% of them experienced weight loss including 2.8% of the low BMI students. Vietnamese girls also had similar tendencies in their desire about their body image as the Japanese but they were less serious. The girls in both countries preferred the thinner body image to the healthy body image and thought that boys liked the thinner body image. Japanese boys were mostly satisfied with their body shape; however, about half (46%) of the Vietnamese boys wanted a bigger and more muscular body image. In conclusion, the biggest problem with body image was the over-concern about thinness of the Japanese girls, which was based on their own misconception. Therefore, as the strategy to correct their body image, education about good health and also information about the boys' favorite body image are recommended.

A community-based picture of type 2 diabetes mellitus in Vietnam.

There has been a significant increase in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in Vietnam. We found that Vietnamese with T2DM had a normal body mass index (BMI), but high levels of total body fat and abdominal fat. Based on published reports together with our own findings, we believe that a sedentary lifestyle and an abundance of starchy foods and also Western style energy-rich foods are factors associated with disease. The staple food of the Vietnamese is still polished-rice which has high glycemic index values. In addition, a Westernized diet, and the chronic consumption of high-glycemic index foods together with a sedentary lifestyle result in insulin resistance and diabetes. The average BMI of T2DM patients is or= 0.90). We therefore, tentatively suggest a BMI of 23 kg/m(2) together with a WHR of 0.90 for males and 0.85 for females as new cutoff values for the risk of T2DM in Vietnamese. These findings have important implications for primary prevention because they indicate that screening and intervention should focus on high-risk populations.

Reproducibility and validity of a food frequency questionnaire among Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to assess the reproducibility and validity of a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) among individuals living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. METHODS: A total of 116 food items in our FFQ were selected by ranking food items according to their contribution to the population intake of nutrients, based on multiple 24-hour recalls (24HRs) from 144 participants in July 2001. The FFQ was validated by using three 24HRs for 118 men and women in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in August 2002. The reproducibility of the FFQ was assessed by repeated administration at 7 +/- 3.4 days. RESULTS: The reproducibility study showed that Spearman correlation coefficients, adjusted for energy intake, ranged from 0.47 to 0.72, and that weighted kappa values ranged from 0.42 for lipid to 0.65 for potassium. In the validation study, correlation coefficients, adjusted for energy intake, between the FFQ and the 24HRs ranged from 0.16 (calcium) to 0.45 (retinol). The proportion of subjects classified by the FFQ into the same third as determined by the 24HRs was between 42% and 62%. CONCLUSIONS: This food frequency questionnaire measured the usual intake of major nutrients for Vietnamese adults living in Ho Chi Minh City and its urban area, where dietary patterns are similar to those of the Vietnamese population.