Objective: Assess the impact of a web-based gamification program on nutrition literacy of families and explore differences in impact by socioeconomic status. Design: Quasi-experimental. Setting: Thirty-seven kindergartens from Portugal. Participants: Eight hundred seventy-seven families. Intervention: Web-based social network of participants' interactions, educational materials, apps and nutritional challenges, focused on fruit, vegetables, sugar, and salt. Main Outcome Measures: Parental nutrition literacy (self-reported survey − 4 dimensions: Nutrients, Food portions, Portuguese food wheel groups, Food labeling). Analysis: General linear model − Repeated measures was used to analyze the effect on the nutrition literacy score. Results: Families uploaded 1267 items (recipes, photographs of challenges) and educators uploaded 327 items (photographs, videos) onto the interactive platform. For the intervention group (n = 106), the final mean (SD) score of nutrition literacy was significantly higher than the baseline: 78.8% (15.6) vs 72.7% (16.2); P < .001, regardless of parental education and perceived income status. No significant differences in the scores of the control group (n = 83) were observed (final 67.8% [16.1] vs initial 66.4% [15.6]; P = .364). Conclusions and Implications: Gamified digital interactive platform seems to be a useful, easily adapted educational tool for the healthy eating learning process. Future implementations of the program will benefit from longer time intervention and assessment of the eating habits of families before and after intervention.

The association between family environment and child’s eating behaviors is well established but a multidimensional approach to study this relation is lacking. This study aimed to assess the proprieties of a questionnaire created to evaluate parental practices, preferences, skills and attitudes regarding fruit and vegetables (F&V), sugar and salt. Participants (n = 714) were families of pre-school children (aged 2–6 years old) of the Nutriscience Project–a web-based gamification program–who answered a questionnaire assessing socio-demographic characteristics, nutrition knowledge, and a scale evaluating parental practices, preferences, skills and attitudes, at the baseline of the project. Exploratory factorial analysis was applied to the scale: 21 items and 5 factors were extracted (52.4% of explained variance) with a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of 0.770: 1. Modelling/active promotion of F&V consumption (α = 0.73), 2. Skills for choosing/preparing healthy food (α = 0.75), 3. Food preferences and satiety perception (α = 0.70), 4. Awareness regarding sugar/salt intake (α = 0.61), 5. Allowance regarding F&V consumption (α = 0.55). Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were conducted to compare factors according to socio-demographic characteristics. Higher scores for parental modelling and active promotion of F&V consumption were observed in older parents, those with higher nutrition knowledge and who reported to live without income difficulties. Regarding food preferences, higher scores were observed in mothers, with higher nutrition knowledge and from higher educated groups. Higher awareness regarding salt and sugar consumption were observed in older parents, with higher education, higher nutrition knowledge and with female children. Older parents and with female children also registered higher scores of skills for choosing/preparing healthy food. The scale showed satisfactory proprieties and may contribute to assess family food environment using a multidimensional approach. It also highlighted the importance of considering socio-demographic characteristics in interventions to promote healthy eating.

Genetically modified organisms have been at the centre of a major public controversy, involving different interests and actors. While much attention has been devoted to consumer views on genetically modified food, there have been few attempts to understand the perceptions of genetically modified technology among farmers. By investigating perceptions of genetically modified organisms among Brazilian farmers, we intend to contribute towards filling this gap and thereby add the views of this stakeholder group to the genetically modified debate. A comparative analysis of our data and data from other studies indicate there is a complex variety of views on genetically modified organisms among farmers. Despite this diversity, we found variations in such views occur within limited parameters, concerned principally with expectations or concrete experiences regarding the advantages of genetically modified crops, perceptions of risks associated with them, and ethical questions they raise. We then propose a classification of prevailing profiles to represent the spectrum of perceptions of genetically modified organisms among farmers.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of small-scale farmers in Brazil towards genetically modified (GM) crops based on a sample of 15 focus groups involving 111 individuals. The analysis of the corpus shows heterogeneous perceptions regarding these crops, shaped by diverse factors, including economic prospects and concerns with the impact on health and the environment. There are many misgivings about these effects among the farmers, who are keen to receive unbiased information on the topic. These uncertainties affect them more as consumers, as most would prefer eating GM-free food, than as producers, as they consider other aspects, especially economic feasibility, when deciding what to grow. Although most farmers believe they should have a voice in decision-making on agricultural issues, few have made concerted efforts to be heard.

Abstract. In Portugal, over the last two and a half decades, high focus on the promotion of renewable energies has been set, particularly through power plants with feed-in tariffs, which has increased the use of internal energy resources and has stimulated the reduction of the country's energy dependence. During this process, the development of related legislation and the dynamism of the sector, with the introduction of incentives which prompted the investment and promoted the maturation of new technologies, has been essential. Gradually, in conjunction with the acquired experience and knowledge, a sustained growth of renewables energies has been possible. Moreover, it put forward scientific research in this area and established attractive revenues in this market, which allowed the reinforcement of the existing energy cluster in Portugal. As a result of this energy policy, the purchase of energy feed-in tariffs producers has reached quite significant values. At the end of 2015, the installed capacity was about 7 900 MVA, which corresponds to the acquisition of 20TWh.