Question

Read the passage given below.

5	Changing food preferences have brought about rapid changes in the structure of the Indian diet. The rapid proliferation of multinational fast food companies and the influence of Western culture have replaced traditional home-cooked meals with ready-to-eat, processed foods thus increasing the risk of chronic diseases in urban Indians. Therefore, nurturing healthy eating habits among Indians from an early age would help to reduce health risks.
10	To date, little is known about the quality and quantity of foods and beverages consumed by urban Indian adolescents. This lack of evidence is a significant barrier to the development of effective nutrition promotion and disease prevention measures.
15                         20	Therefore, a self-administered, semi-quantitative, 59-item meal-based food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was developed to assess the dietary intake of adolescents. A total of 1026 students (aged 14-16 years) attending private, English-speaking schools in Kolkata completed the survey. A sample percentage of the food consumption pattern is displayed. The survey results report poor food consumption patterns and highlight the need to design healthy eating initiatives. Interestingly, while there were no gender differences in the consumption of legumes and fried snacks, the survey found more females consumed cereals, vegetables and fruits than their male counterparts.
25	In conclusion, the report suggested that schools ought to incorporate food literacy concepts into their curriculum as they have the potential of increasing the fruit and vegetable intake of teenagers. Additionally, healthy school canteen policies with improved availability, accessibility, variety and affordability of healthy food choices would support the consumption of nutritious food in students.

Based on your understanding of the passage, answer the questions given below.

1. What does the researcher mean by ‘changing food preferences'?
2. Why was this survey on the food consumption of adolescents undertaken?
3. With reference to the above figure, write one conclusion about students' consumption of energy-dense drinks.
4. What can be concluded from the ‘no intake’ data of fruit consumption versus energy-dense snacks, with reference to the above figure?
5. There were gender differences observed in the consumption of healthy foods, according to the survey. Substantiate.
6. Why is ‘affordability’ recommended as a significant feature of a school canteen policy?
7. Identify a word from lines 9-18 indicating that the questionnaire was specifically designed to be completed by a respondent without the intervention of the researcher collecting the data.

Answer 1

1. Urban population’s transition from healthy home-cooked meals to ready-to-eat-processed foods.
2. understand the food consumption pattern of urban adolescents and make recommendations based on the data.
3. Close to 47% drink three or more servings of energy-dense beverages while a mere 5% said ‘no’ to more than one serving of the beverage.
4. Nearly half the respondents (45%) did not consume any servings of fruit in contrast to 95% that had some form of an energy-dense snack.
5. Females had a more nutritious dietary intake as they consumed more cereals, vegetables and fruits compared to their male counterparts.
6. The consumers are school children and therefore food should be affordable.
7. Self-administered.