Category Archives: Julia Bird

Posts related to Julia Bird’s practicum.

What targets for carotenoid intakes?

1 Reply

My dataset contains carotenoid intakes for the six carotenoids measured in NHANES:

  • Alpha carotene
  • Beta carotene
  • Beta cryptoxanthin
  • Lycopene
  • Lutein
  • Zeaxanthin

The issue is that I have been able to compare vitamin intakes with recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, however there are no recognized recommendations for the carotenoids. Carotenoid intakes and levels in the body can been seen as a marker for fruit and vegetable consumption. Therefore, I thought that the best approach would be to look at carotenoid intakes in people meeting recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption. There has been a recent publication in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association that actually looked at this in the NHANES data from 2003-2006. My data goes up until 2008 however I don’t expect to see any major changes if an extra survey cycle is included. The authors compare carotenoid intakes between people meeting fruit and vegetable recommended intakes. This can make a suitable basis to work out the percentage of the US population not consuming enough carotenoids.

Here is the reference and link: Murphy MM, Barraj LM, Herman D, Bi X, Cheatham R, Randolph RK. Phytonutrient intake by adults in the United States in relation to fruit and vegetable consumption. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2012 Feb;112(2):222-9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22741166

I now have my calculator online but there are a few adjustments that still need to be made. I hope that I will be able to start user testing within a week!

Absolute protein intakes?

1 Reply

So after all my effort from an organizational and web design point of view, finally I get to think about something to do with nutrition. For my database, I have been entering Estimated Average Requirements for age and gender groups. The trouble is, protein EARs (and RDAs) are on a per kilogram basis. To get around this, I have been able to determine average body size for the center of each age category based on the CDC’s growth charts for children. The CDC has a wide range of various charts, for both boys and girls up to age 20, including data tables that the charts are based on. Calculating protein intakes based on the EAR (which decreases on a per-weight basis throughout childhood) yields the absolute protein intakes that I need.

The CDC growth charts are available here http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/ in case anyone is looking for them. A nice one to bookmark.

Web site design basics in place – phew…

2 Replies

After finding a web host and checking in with the guy doing the heavy database programming, I decided to press on with the web design part. Unfortunately, my colleague who I was counting on to be able to do the web design will be too busy for anything major until August. I only know the rudiments of web design and although I thought it would be interesting to learn more, I would prefer to focus my attention on the nutrition communication part of my practicum. Web experts often say that the programming side is easy, and I was encouraged to select a template to save time yet create a professional-looking result. Well, I had a bit of a look and found one that I liked on wwwfreewebsitetemplates.com, which I then downloaded to work on. After about one day of work time spread out over a week or so, I have managed to cobble together a website skeleton that I am reasonably happy with. Now after a little more tweaking, I need to add some content, work more on refining the database, and create information about each of the nutrients that I will cover on my site, before I head into the testing side.

Search for a web host complete!

1 Reply

Before I started on this practicum, I created a prototype using Microsoft Access that gives an idea what I want to do with my micronutrient calculator website. I used this prototype to demonstrate to people how it could work to get the green light for the practicum.This database needs to be converted to a format that can be viewed via an openly accessible website. I would like to get a prototype on a website so that I can start adding content and refining the application. For this I need a programmer and an internet address where I can place my site, and a host to hold the data. I located a web programmer (an acquaintance) who is helping with the difficult part of creating the database and controls that will exist on the website. He had some “preferred web host capabilities” that would help him use the programming language that he wants to use. So I started my search. Not an easy task because there are literally thousands of web hosts and novices like me have no idea where to start! Within the Microsoft site, there is a tool to help find a web host http://www.microsoft.com/web/hosting/home. I could narrow down my search to providers of specific technologies and read some reviews about the web host. After cross-checking with some other sites, I selected one, had it approved by my programmer, and signed up! He is now working on getting the basic calculator functions together. I will have to move along with getting some content written for my site, and finding a nice web page template to hold the nutrition content and calculator.

A “Micronutrient Calculator” based on NHANES data

2 Replies

I wanted to briefly explain what I am working on for my practicum. Where I work, DSM Nutritional Products, we have an analysis of 2003-2008 NHANES dietary intake data that shows the percentage of the population meeting micro- and macro-nutrient intakes for various age, gender, income and ethnic categories. I would like to provide this information in a online “calculator” to allow public health nutritionists, dietitians, and the general public to be able to access this data more readily. This could be used to identify risk groups more easily. I will also provide information about the nutrients in the calculator (I have around 30!). At the moment, I am working on getting a web-based prototype up and running so that I can get started on the hard work of producing the content. I will be assisted by a couple of web specialists for the tricky programming stuff.

–Julia Bird