Excessive body weight gain during the growth period of early life may predispose individuals towards obesity and metabolic disorder in later life. We investigated the possibility of using the food efficiency ratio as an early indicator for predicting susceptibility to diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance. Four-week-old, prepubertal, male Sprague Dawley rats were divided into obesity-prone and obesity-resistant groups based on food efficiency ratio values after five days on a high-fat diet. Metabolic parameters measured after 2, 6, and 10 weeks, and specific phenotypes were compared with each group. Obesityprone rats had higher increases in body weight and fat mass compared to obesity-resistant rats over the study period. Obesity-prone rats became glucose intolerant early in this study and remained so throughout the experimental period, with increases in fat weight and leptin levels occurring first, followed by increases in insulin level. Gluconeogenesis and insulin resistance significantly increased in obesity-prone groups in which activities of glucose-6-phosphatase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase were increased and glucokinase activity decreased. Higher food efficiency ratio at an early age was closely correlated with body fat accumulation, hyperleptinemia, and hyperinsulinemia of middle and elderly age. We suggest a high food efficiency ratio in prepubertal subjects may be a useful predictor of future obesity and insulin resistance.

Effects of a short-period nutrition education program on the dietary behavior and the dietary intake were investigated in sixty nine healthy female college students. Questionnaires for general health information, character type, dietary behavior and dietary intake were answered by the subjects. All the subjects were participated in the nutrition education program which was carried out twice during the study. Subjects were divided into three groups according to their adiposity indices (AI), which are low AI (33 subjects), normal AI (31), and high AI (5). In the normal and the high AI group, the nutrition education program appeared to influence the dietary behaviors of the subjects significantly. However the program did not significantly influence the dietary intake of three groups, except PUFA ratio. It appears that a longer-period nutrition education program is required for influencing both the dietary behavior and the dietary intake of the subjects.