A healthy lifestyle depends on many factors, including appropriate and balanced dietary habits and regular exercise. Even just the food side of the equation is complex, depending on everything from income and education to culture and beliefs. A debate as seemingly simple as which nutrition label works best becomes difficult when compared across different countries, age groups and income classes.

Together with other stakeholders, Europe’s food and drink industry is contributing to a more complete understanding of these factors and ultimately better informed public policy through rigorous scientific research focusing in particular on the identification of best practice with regard to reducing levels of obesity.

One finding that is already clear: there is no such thing as a “European diet.” People eat different foods in different countries, and even in different regions of the same country. They always have – and they always will. Recognising such differences helps policy makers, as well as food and drink manufacturers, better respond to European consumers’ individual needs.

Consumer Research Reveals Differences in Perceptions of Healthy Life Styles

Together with other stakeholders in the Platform, CIAA has contributed €80,000 to a joint research project to identify a best-practice communication strategy to motivate children and their parents to achieve healthy lifestyles. Following quantitative and qualitative fieldwork in several countries in January and February 2007, preliminary findings revealed that mothers and children both saw a healthy lifestyle as a result of healthy diets and exercise, but had different ideas about achieving it:

• Both mothers and children regarded physical activity as something “fun” and important for a healthy lifestyle, but perceived it to be easier for children to practice than for their mothers.
• Children (incorrectly) perceive a healthy diet as being a choice between black-and-white extremes of foods that should and should not be eaten.
• Mothers, on the other hand, were more willing to eat foods perceived as being “healthy” such as vegetables and fish and nuts, but also admitted to not setting particularly good examples for their children.

The findings show that some messages are completely lost on children, but are important for parents, while other messages can “sink in” with children if delivered in the right way through best-practice social marketing.

The results of this research will be used as a basis for educational campaigns across Europe.

This booklet is designed by TGDF as a Food and Drink Industry Inventory to provide an update and accurate data in a single resource for the sector. A data analysis specific for the food and drink industry was made based on the data of TOBB (Union of Chamber and Commodity Exchanges), TÜİK (Turkish Statistical Institute), and Prime Ministry Undersecretary of Treasury.

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• Pan-Hellenic research: SEVT in cooperation with the Agricultural University of Athens (Nutrition Department) have decided to carry out a Pan-Hellenic research on children’s’ and teenagers’ dietary habits aiming to control and prevent children’s obesity and to advice about healthy eating and lifestyles.
• Pan-European research program "PorGrow": SEVT participated with 8 other countries, in the Pan-European research program named PorGrow - an acronym derived from the phrase "Policy Options for Responding to the Growing Challenge from Obesity". Its objective was the investigation of the most effective strategic plans for preventing and treating obesity.
  

In October 2006, Kellogg received an award from the Spanish Society of Communitarian Nutrition for the most outstanding continuous support to scientific research in the field of children and youth’s nutrition.

Obesity among young people represents a critical public health challenge but often suffers from inadequate information. The lack of obesity prevalence data in Spain prompted Kellogg to sponsor a two-year, six-volume study of the food habits and nutritional status of Spanish children and youth.

Developed in Spain by key professionals in nutrition, pediatrics and physiology, the study is one of the most ambitious studies of the health-related habits of Spanish children and youth and is being used as an important point of reference among both the scientific community and the public administration.

Among its findings: overweight and obesity affect 26.3% of Spain’s youth, but not equally. For example, boys, on average, are heavier than girls, and obesity is most prevalent among people with the lowest socio-economic and educational levels and among those who omitted or consumed a poor breakfast. The Canary Islands and Andalusia showed the highest prevalence of obesity and overweight, and the  northeast region the lowest.

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An ambitious new public-private partnership to strengthen innovation and competitiveness of the European food and drink sectors, in particular regarding nutritional benefits, the European Technology Platform “Food for Life” aims to achieve nothing less than improving people’s quality of life. By promoting the development of innovative, novel and improved food products, the ETP Food for Life aims to add both “life to years” and “years to life” by studying the links between diet and brain activity, immune and intestinal functions and metabolic function. It will also seek to identify ways of ensuring food safety through up-front design and by the identification and promotion of best practices in sustainable food production. So far, four companies (Nestlé, Kraft, Groupe Danone and Unilever) have invested €50,000 each in the “Food for Life” project.

What will the ETP Food for Life deliver?

• A platform for quicker and more effective, consumer-oriented food innovation
• A forum for ensuring an effective approach to integrating multiple disciplines for demonstrated consumer benefits
• Improved management of Europe’s knowledge infrastructure
• An enabling environment for pre-competitive research and competitive consortia
• Sustainable business models
• Education and training of persons in multiple disciplines
• Identification and exchange of best practices

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CIAA member companies are continuously investing in research related to products, choice and healthy lifestyles.

Here are some more examples:

• Some CIAA members, including Groupe Danone, spend most of their R&D budget in enhancing the health and nutrition content of their products. Many others, including Mars, Unilever and the Campbell Soup Company, spend more than 25% of R&D to improve health and nutrition content
• Many companies have doubled their R&D spending to improve the health and nutrition content of their foods over the last five years
• Tate & Lyle spends about 66% of its annual research budget on improving health and nutrition content
• Nestlé invested over €1 billion on R&D in 2006. 60% of this was spent on nutrition, health, and wellness