The DONE framework for determinants of nutrition and eating

The question of which factors drive human eating and nutrition is a key issue in many branches of science, and is of utmost importance to inform health promotion interventions and policies. In a paper just published in PLOS One, we describe the creation, evaluation, and updating of an interdisciplinary, interactive, and evolving “framework 2.0” of Determinants Of Nutrition and Eating (DONE). This endeavor was part of the DEDIPAC (determinants of diet and physical activity) joint action within the Healthy Diet, Healthy Life European joint programming initiative. A similar exercise was done and already published for sedentary behavior (the systems of sedentary behavior (SOS) framework). The DONE framework was created by an interdisciplinary workgroup in a multiphase, multimethod process. Modifiability, relationship strength, and population-level effect of the determinants were rated to identify areas of priority for research and interventions. External experts positively evaluated the usefulness, comprehensiveness, and quality of the DONE framework. An approach to continue updating the framework with the help of experts was piloted. The DONE framework can be freely accessed via the lead university for DONE, i.e. university of Konstanz in Germany,
and used in a highly flexible manner: determinants can be sorted, filtered and visualized for both very specific research questions as well as more general queries. The dynamic nature of the framework allows it to evolve as experts can continually add new determinants and ratings. We anticipate this framework will be useful for research prioritization and intervention development.