To analyse changes in food choices, diet-related risk factors and their association during 6 months of military service.

Longitudinal cohort study in Finland, where all men are liable to military service and a clear majority of each age group completes service. Dietary intake data were collected by self-administered questionnaire before and at 6 months of service. Three dietary indices based on food frequencies were developed to characterize the diet: Sugar Index, Fibre Index and Fat Index. Thirteen diet-related risk factors were measured at the beginning and at 6 months of service.

Military environment, two geographically distinct garrisons.

Male conscripts aged 18–21 years (n 256) performing military service.

During 6 months of service, positive changes concerned more frequent use of fibre-rich foods (P = 0·011), improved body composition (BMI, waist circumference, muscle mass, fat mass and percentage body fat, P ≤ 0·003 for all), decreased systolic blood pressure and increased HDL cholesterol (P < 0·001 for both). Negative changes concerned more frequent use of sugar-rich foods and increased total cholesterol, TAG and blood glucose (P < 0·001 for all). The consumption of fibre-rich foods was inversely associated with anthropometric risk factors at baseline and with sugar-rich foods at both time points.

Despite more frequent consumption of sweet foods, military service with a unified, nutritionally planned diet, a controlled environment and high physical load has a positive effect on conscripts’ health risk factors. The negative changes in blood lipids and glucose may reflect more varied free-time eating.

To examine associations between nutrition screening checklists and the health of older women.

Cross-sectional postal survey including measures of health and health service utilisation, as well as the Australian Nutrition Screening Initiative (ANSI), adapted from the Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI).

Australia, 1996.

In total, 12 939 women aged 70–75 years randomly selected as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health.

Responses to individual items in the ANSI checklist, and ANSI and NSI scores, were associated with measures of health and health service utilisation. Women with high ANSI and NSI scores had poorer physical and mental health, higher health care utilisation and were less likely to be in the acceptable weight range. The performance of an unweighted score (TSI) was also examined and showed similar results. Whereas ANSI classified 30% of the women as ‘high-risk’, only 13% and 12% were classified as ‘high-risk’ by the NSI and TSI, respectively. However, for identifying women with body mass index outside the acceptable range, sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive values for all of these checklists were less than 60%.

Higher scores on both the ANSI and NSI are associated with poorer health. The simpler unweighted method of scoring the ANSI (TSI) showed better discrimination for the identification of ‘at risk’ women than the weighted ANSI method. The predictive value of individual items and the checklist scores need to be examined longitudinally.