Review Reports

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

There seems to be a punctuation error on line 18.

The authors of this article are also authors of another publication, which appears in the list of references with the number 30. It is not clear whether the two articles present results from the same study or two complementary studies. In any case, being articles on the same subject, in the same municipality, the complementarity between the two articles could have been more explored. In the introduction reference 30 is not quoted and the way it is quoted in the discussion does not seem to be appropriate.

A small detail, not relevant, is that the number of inhabitants of the municipality is slightly different in the two articles (line 73): 405,140 or 405,740.

In the writing of numbers, decimals are separated by dots, sometimes by commas. It would be better, always use points. To separate thousands, the use of a space is the most appropriate because it is unequivocal.

It is not explained how the availability of food of different categories was measured. Tables 1 and 2 do not include the units in which availability is expressed. The table format makes it difficult to read.

Figure 1 represents the density of each type of food retailers. It would be more interesting to have the proportion between different types of food retailers or the percentage of them that presents a certain characteristic.

The information on food availability is given by regions of the municipality, but we do not know what other characteristics (for example, socio-economic) show each of these regions.

The discussion addresses some logical aspects of food availability and its relation to the territory and the population, but these aspects were not explored in this study.

Author Response

Thank you for reading our manuscript carefully and for giving us suggestions that will undoubtedly support the publication and make the manuscript more relevant. Below is the answer for each of your suggestions, which were also incorporated in the resubmitted version.

We modified the title of the article a bit because it seemed more appropriate. The new Title was: “Urban food sources and the challenges of food availability according to the Brazilian Dietary Guidelines recommendations”

There seems to be a punctuation error on line 18.

Answer: The pontuaction was corrected and the text was as follows:” This is a cross-sectional study performed in the municipality of Jundiai in the state of Sao Paulo-Brazil. Data from within-store audit and geographic data were used to characterizing the nutrition environment.”

The authors of this article are also authors of another publication, which appears in the list of references with the number 30. It is not clear whether the two articles present results from the same study or two complementary studies. In any case, being articles on the same subject, in the same municipality, the complementarity between the two articles could have been more explored. In the introduction reference 30 is not quoted and the way it is quoted in the discussion does not seem to be appropriate.

Answer: The reference number 30 is part of the studies that our group has carried out in the municipality but uses secondary data. To make this information more consistent and appropriate with the findings of the study, we changed the text in the discussion and left it on lines 244 to 248: “In another study carried out in the same municipality by our research group, but using secondary data, it was verified the lower density of retail trades that sell fresh and unprocessed foods especially in peripheral neighborhoods[30]. In both studies, we identified that the population living in this municipality may face obstacles to achieve a healthy diet and to follow the recommendations of the Food Guide for the Brazilian Population”

We also inserted some information from this study in the introduction on lines 73-76 as follows: “A previously study conducted in the city of Jundiai-São Paulo with secondary data showed higher concentrations of small markets in relation to supermarkets in lower-income neighborhoods, in addition, the food retailers that sells fresh and unprocessed foods, such as farm markets and butchers, were more present in the central areas of the city”

A small detail, not relevant, is that the number of inhabitants of the municipality is slightly different in the two articles (line 73): 405,140 or 405,740.

Answer: In 2016 the municipality had approximately 407 740 inhabitants and now in 2018 it has approximately 414 810 inhabitants. We have already updated this data in the manuscript on line 98. Thank you for verifying this detail. 

In the writing of numbers, decimals are separated by dots, sometimes by commas. It would be better, always use points. To separate thousands, the use of a space is the most appropriate because it is unequivocal.

Answer: Thank you for your comments, we have corrected the text.

It is not explained how the availability of food of different categories was measured. Tables 1 and 2 do not include the units in which availability is expressed. The table format makes it difficult to read.

Answer: We have added a text on how we calculate food availability indicators according to NOVA groups on lines 161 to 164: “The mean of food items available in each of the four NOVA groups for each audited food retail were calculated allowing to estimate the availability mean of unprocessed foods, culinary ingredients, processed and ultra-processed foods.” In the notes of tables 1 and 2 we add the correct information too.

Figure 1 represents the density of each type of food retailers. It would be more interesting to have the proportion between different types of food retailers or the percentage of them that presents a certain characteristic.

The information on food availability is given by regions of the municipality, but we do not know what other characteristics (for example, socio-economic) show each of these regions.

Answer: We also found the suggestion interesting and we calculated the proportions inserting the figure2. We also added in figure 1 the mean per capita income. With this we restructure method, results and discussion.

The discussion addresses some logical aspects of food availability and its relation to the territory and the population, but these aspects were not explored in this study.

Answer: We have reviewed all the manuscript, particularly the discussion and we hope that it is now in dialogue with national and international references expanding the discussion of our data.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic is quite interesting in regards to urban food sources and the challenges of food availability. It is gradually becoming very relevant to engage policy makers on food security issues, in which the availability of food is one of the major pillars.

There are a few comments that the authors should address:

These comments are marked directly in yellow in the manuscript (attached).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for reading our manuscript carefully and for giving us suggestions that will undoubtedly support the publication and make the manuscript more relevant. Below is the answer for each of your suggestions, which were also incorporated in the resubmitted version.

We modified the title of the article a bit because it seemed more appropriate. The new Title was: “Urban food sources and the challenges of food availability according to the Brazilian Dietary Guidelines recommendations”

The topic is quite interesting in regards to urban food sources and the challenges of food availability. It is gradually becoming very relevant to engage policy makers on food security issues, in which the availability of food is one of the major pillars.

There are a few comments that the authors should address:

These comments are marked directly in yellow in the manuscript (attached).

We have extensively revised the manuscript to make sure we are using appropriate terms.

The sentence of line 20 in the abstract was rewritten to make it clearer and transformed into the following sentence: “The mean of food items available in each of the four NOVA groups for each audited food retail were calculated. The density and proportion of different types of food retailers were georeferenced.”

The reference of Duran et al was rewritten in lowercase as the formatting of the journal.

Line 130 (now 156) was restructured as follows: To calculate the density of healthy and unhealthy food retailer indicators amongst the inhabitants, it was considered the resident population living in households in the census tracts, available at the Demographic Census of IBGE

The citations of the references were standardized throughout the text, as well as other comments from the reviewer regarding the format of the letters and words were corrected.

We also inserted one more paragraph discussing the findings against the recommendations of Brazilian Dietary Guidelines in the lines 293-314” The Brazilian Dietary Guidelines states the golden rule “always prefer unprocessed or minimally processed foods and freshly made dishes and meals to ultra-processed foods”[30], in this case, to population achieve this golden rule it is necessary food retailers that supply healthy foods.  When verifying in a municipality areas of medium and low income with high proportion of establishment that sell primarily ultra-processed food and at the same time low density of food retail with availability of unprocessed food we also verified the presence of the obstacle "supply”. According to Brazilian Dietary Guidelines to overcome this obstacle the population should: “Shop mindfully. Avoid places that sell or serve mainly or only ultraprocessed products. In supermarkets take and use a shopping list. Support farmers’ markets, municipal markets, specialist retailers, and other places that sell varieties of natural and minimally processed foods, and prefer food produced by ecological methods”[30]. In Jundiai-SP, according to the findings of this study, the population could have difficulties in overcoming the obstacle supply, especially populations of medium and low income.”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx