Overview

Column 1

Title: Ultra-Processed Food (UPF) Consumption, Diet Quality and BMI Z-scores of Children Aged 2-5

Subtitle: Data Exploration of Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study (ITFPS-2) Dataset

Data source: long_data_final.rds

Background: This dashboard performs an exploratory data analysis of the data being used a part of a study I am working on, where we will be measuring the association between the ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption as an exposure and BMI z-scores and Diet Quality as outcomes. Our target population consists of children aged 2-5 who are from low-income families in the US. For our analysis, we are using the Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study (ITFPS-2) dataset and have used the NOVA UPF scale and Healthy Eating Index 2015 Diet Quality Index to measure UPF consumption and Diet Quality respectively.

Quick note about NOVA classification system: it classifies food into 1 of 4 categories, from unprocessed to ultra-processed:

• Group 1: Unprocessed or Minimally Processed Foods (eg. fresh fruit)
• Group 2: Processed Culinary Ingredients (eg. olive oil)
• Group 3: Processed foods (eg. canned legumes)
• Group 4: Ultra-Processed foods (eg. store-bought potato chips)

Column 2

Results: We see that UPF consumption increases with age, and seems to be negatively correlated with Diet Quality. We also don’t see a noticeable correlation between UPF consumption and BMI-z scores. We will study both relationships further through modeling but this gives us a glimpse into what to expect.