Beata Piórecka

Policies to promote healthy eating in Europe: a structured review of policies and their effectiveness

This review provides a classification of public policies to promote healthier eating as well as a structured mapping of existing measures in Europe. Complete coverage of alternative policy types was ensured by complementing the review with a selection of major interventions from outside Europe. Under the auspices of the Seventh Framework Programmes Eatwell Project, funded by the European Commission, researchers from five countries reviewed a representative selection of policy actions based on scientific papers, policy documents, grey literature, government websites, other policy reviews, and interviews with policy-makers. This work resulted in a list of 129 policy interventions, 121 of which were in Europe. For each type of policy, a critical review of its effectiveness was conducted, based on the evidence currently available. The results of this review indicate a need exists for a more systematic and accurate evaluation of government-level interventions as well as for a stronger focus on actual behavioral change rather than changes in attitude or intentions alone. The currently available evidence is very heterogeneous across policy types and is often incomplete.

Assessment of evaluations made to healthy eating policies in Europe: A review within the EATWELL Project

OBJECTIVE To identify and assess healthy eating policies at national level which have been evaluated in terms of their impact on awareness of healthy eating, food consumption, health outcome or cost/benefit. DESIGN Review of policy documents and their evaluations when available. SETTING European Member States. SUBJECTS One hundred and twenty-one policy documents revised, 107 retained. RESULTS Of the 107 selected interventions, twenty-two had been evaluated for their impact on awareness or knowledge and twenty-seven for their impact on consumption. Furthermore sixteen interventions provided an evaluation of health impact, while three actions specifically measured any cost/benefit ratio. The indicators used in these evaluations were in most cases not comparable. Evaluation was more often found for public information campaigns, regulation of meals at schools/canteens and nutrition education programmes. CONCLUSIONS The study highlights the need not only to develop harmonized and verifiable procedures but also indicators for measuring effectiveness and success and for comparing between interventions and countries. EU policies are recommended to provide a set of indicators that may be measured consistently and regularly in all countries. Furthermore, public information campaigns should be accompanied by other interventions, as evaluations may show an impact on awareness and intention, but rarely on consumption patterns and health outcome.

Interventions to promote healthy eating habits: evaluation and recommendations.

Although in several EU Member States many public interventions have been running for the prevention and/or management of obesity and other nutrition‐related health conditions, few have yet been formally evaluated. The multidisciplinary team of the EATWELL project will gather benchmark data on healthy eating interventions in EU Member States and review existing information on the effectiveness of interventions using a three‐stage procedure (i) Assessment of the interventions impact on consumer attitudes, consumer behaviour and diets; (ii) The impact of the change in diets on obesity and health and (iii) The value attached by society to these changes, measured in life years gained, cost savings and quality‐adjusted life years. Where evaluations have been inadequate, EATWELL will gather secondary data and analyse them with a multidisciplinary approach incorporating models from the psychology and economics disciplines. Particular attention will be paid to lessons that can be learned from private sector that are transferable to the healthy eating campaigns in the public sector. Through consumer surveys and workshops with other stakeholders, EATWELL will assess the acceptability of the range of potential interventions. Armed with scientific quantitative evaluations of policy interventions and their acceptability to stakeholders, EATWELL expects to recommend more appropriate interventions for Member States and the EU, providing a one‐stop guide to methods and measures in interventions evaluation, and outline data collection priorities for the future.

Wpływ postaw rodzicielskich na sposób żywienia dzieci w wieku przedszkolnym w Krakowie na tle uwarunkowań socjo-demograficznych

Preschool period is a stage of intensive development of the food preferences and the pro-health attitudes associated with normal eating behaviors and consequently eating habits in adulthood. The aim of the study was to assess eating behaviors of children attending kindergartens in relation to selected socio-economic factors in their families. The study was conducted in a group of 325 children, whose average age was 5.23 ±1.30 years, attending nine kindergartens in Krakow. The questionnaire was filled in by 51.4% (N = 167) of parents of boys and 48.6% (N = 158) of girls. To conduct qualitative assessment of nutrition habits the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) was used with addition of questions regarding the socio-economic situation of the surveyed families. Differences in selected dietary behaviors of children were evaluated by gender, family income and parents’ educational level. The study indicates the existence of the relationship between food-related behaviour of preschool children and parents’ education level and family income. The resulting image of dietary behaviours of children in the study group has identified numerous anomalies that require an active and ongoing nutrition education for children and their parents.

Zachowania informacyjne Polaków dotyczące zdrowego odżywiania się. Wyniki badania EATWELL

The rate of obesity in Poland increases rapidly, especially fast among children and adolescents. An important and also fully accepted by the society ways of fighting this phenomenon are social marketing and educational interventions. To make these activities effective they have to keep pace with changes in information behavior of target groups. But the importance of raising information competency of consumers is not fully understood by those who design and implement health programs and health Information behavior and literacy rarely are the subject of research. The goal of this study is to find where and how Polish citizens look for diet related information, what barriers they encounter, and whether they behave differently in comparison with citizens of other European countries. Method: A survey administered through computer-assisted on-line web-interviewing to a probabilistic, stratified by age and gender, sample of respondents in Poland (n = 600). Comparison sample – same number of respondents in Belgium, Denmark, Italy and UK. Results: 49% of surveyed Poles do not know where to look for healthy diet related information and have bigger problems with this task then the respondents in other surveyed countries. In comparison with Danish, a probability that a Pole knows where to look for such information decreases twice. Individual and environmental determinants strongly affect information knowledge and behavior. Men, educated, poorer and sicker persons have bigger problems with finding information and are less likely to attempt to look for it. Majority of respondents uses Internet and Google to look for healthy diet information. Only 23% of Polish respondents would turn to their GPs for healthy eating advice.

Evaluation of Caffeine Consumption among Pregnant Women from Southern Poland

Caffeine is the most widely consumed stimulant worldwide, including by pregnant women. Products containing caffeine should be limited in accordance with the recommendations for pregnancy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate consumption of caffeinated products and daily caffeine intake from food by pregnant women. The study was conducted on a group of healthy pregnant women: attendees of antenatal classes (n = 70) and patients of an outpatient gynecological clinic (n = 70) from Krakow (Southern Poland). A questionnaire about the frequency of consumption of selected foods and drinks containing caffeine was used. The average caffeine content in food products obtained from other Polish studies was used to estimate average daily caffeine intake in our study group. Mean daily caffeine intake was 49.60 ± 59.15 mg/day and the maximum was 498.0 mg/day. The main sources of caffeine were as follows: black tea (bags, leaf), instant coffee and ground coffee. No statistically significant differences in caffeine intake between the groups were found. A weak negative correlation (rs) = −0.28 (p = 0.0208) between month of pregnancy and caffeine intake was observed among attendees of antenatal classes. Mean daily caffeine intake did not exceed the maximum recommended dose in our study group.

Reklama audiowizualna a zachowania żywieniowe dzieci w wieku przedszkolnym

The goal of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the time spent in front of a computer or TV and eating habits in kindergarten children. The study was conducted in May and September 2012 in two kindergartens in Krakow (n=61) and in a kindergarten in Podleze, a village near Krakow (n=34). The average age of the studied children was 5.02±1.17. 40 parents of boys and 55 parents of girls took part in the study. The differences in responses related to gender and place of living were checked. The analyses of correlations among particular factors, including BMI, were conducted by means of the Spearman rank. Most of the kindergarten children (60%) spent an hour or less in front of TV. No relation between the time spent in front of TV or computer and gender or place of living or BMI interpretation was noticed. The time devoted to watching TV was connected with the frequency of snacks and fast-food consumption. The higher the education of mothers the less frequently children eat in front of TV. The frequency of sweetened beverages was also linked with the time spent in front of a computer. The relation between time spent in front of TV or computer and frequency of high energy food consumption among children was confirmed in the study. An effort should be made to educate parents about probable increased risk of children’s obesity connected with watching media advertising.