Sunday 5 July 2009

Overcoming Barriers to Dietary Change: a Food Standards Agency seminar

Tuesday 21 January 2003

The purpose of the seminar, held on 21 January 2003, was to provide a diverse audience of interested parties and potential users with results of five recently completed research projects funded under the Agency programme Food Acceptability and Choice.

Executive summary

An important aspect of this programme is the determination of factors that may inhibit consumers' choice of a healthy diet and how these barriers may be overcome. The seminar also offered an arena for discussion of the research and perspectives of how the results might be used. This is in line with recommendation 30 of the report A review of the Food Standards Agency's Research Portfolio and Research Management Systems (2001) .

The seminar was attended by 71 participants from a range of backgrounds and roles which included health professionals, academics and industry. It was chaired by Professor Annie Anderson (Professor of Food Choice and Director of the Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research in the Department of Medicine, University of Dundee). Dr Jenny Woolfe (Food Acceptability and Choice Programme Manager, Food Standards Agency) provided an introductory address outlining the aims of the programme and identified among its strengths:

innovation
contributing to the evidence base in the field of dietary change
addressing inequalities
practical outcomes
dissemination

Research presentations

Researchers gave presentations on the topics below. More information on these projects is available in the full report of the seminar.

'Increasing the intake of starchy foods by families' by Professor John Mathers (University of Newcastle)
'Barriers to the development and uptake of reduced fat foods' by Dr Barbara Stewart-Knox (University of Ulster at Coleraine)
'Dish it Up!' multi-media CD-ROM' by Dr Michelle McKinley (The Dairy Council, formerly of University of Ulster) & Dr Carole Lowis (Food & Health Communications)
'Assessing the impact of a community-based practical food skills intervention (Cookwell intervention)' by Dr Wendy L Wrieden (University of Dundee)
Do 'food deserts' exist? by Dr Martin White (University of Newcastle upon Tyne)

Workshops

Three afternoon workshops were arranged to discuss (i) key issues arising from the projects and (ii) the practical issues that these raise. The main issues identified are outlined below:

Workshop on Food Deserts

The issue of food deserts is hugely complex and further work looking at issues such as methods of payment may be of interest to identify specific groups where action is required.

Similar work in rural areas would be needed given that the communities in these areas are likely to have different issues/ factors of influence.

There is a need to focus on the poorest in communities; the 70% who have a car and go to multiple supermarkets for their weekly shop are sufficiently catered for. Issues to consider would include:

The role of multiple-stores.
The need for national level discussions on these results, bearing in mind the commercial sensitivities this would need to address.
Making available point of sale data in an anonymised format to overcome commercial sensitivity in the data.

Simplistic action on food deserts is unlikely to work. The situation is more complex than the presence or absence of shops.

Workshop on Strategies to Reduce Fat in the Diet

Many consumers still do not understand where the main sources of fat in their diet are to be found.
Although reduced fat foods are found increasingly on sale, fat intakes are reducing only slowly. We do not know whether reduced fat foods (RFFs) are bringing about any significant overall reduction in people's fat intakes.
People make 'trade offs' in RFFs and high fat foods, which may result in no overall reduction of fat intake.
Recognition by the public of starchy foods and their role is still poor. The major misconception is that starchy foods are fattening. More should be done by the Agency to inform people about them and help to promote them.
Government should explore promoting the concept of 5 (portions of fruit and veg) + 5 (portions of starchy food) a day.
Opportunities for promoting breakfast should be explored. There may also be opportunities for manufacturers to produce new, tasty, quick and healthy breakfast foods.
Industry could explore the possibility of increasing the quantity of starchy food in ready meals such as curry and rice.

Workshop on Influencing Healthier Eating by Teaching Cooking Skills to Low-Income Groups

Training of facilitators – it is important to give some sort of accredited qualification as an incentive.
Sustainability – there are limited resources for motivation / keeping people interested. There is a need to look at the possibility of partnerships with industry for funding.
Recruitment of target groups – 'healthy eating' puts some people off. Therefore it is important to package cooking classes to suit the target groups.
Interventions should be transferable; i.e. easy to modify and adapt.
The wider community development issue should be promoted as well as healthy eating issues.
Capacity – how much you can do and how many can you reach?

Further information

For more information about this seminar or the Food Acceptability and Choice R&D programme contact:

Dr Vivien Lund
Nutrition Division, Branch A
Room 825, Aviation House
125 Kingsway
London WC2B 6NH
Tel: 020 7276 8764,
E-mail: vivien.lund@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk

Graphic version of this page

Overcoming Barriers to Dietary Change: a Food Standards Agency seminar

Executive summary

Research presentations

Workshops

Further information

Related links

Tell a Friend

Printer friendly

Contact us

Get alerts

Our Sites