IFAVA - Science News

Food Dudes - Amazing Results

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 12:00:00 -0500

The Food Dude Healthy Eating Program from Wales can get children to eat more F&V.

The traditional approach has been to inform children about what they should and shouldn't eat in the hope they will alter their eating habits accordingly. Unfortunately, research evidence shows that this approach has limited success and children's eating habits have remained unchanged.

Clearly, children's knowing what they should do does not mean that they will do it. What they need is not simply to be given information, but help to change their actual eating behaviour.

The Food Dude Healthy Eating Program has been developed on the basis of established psychological principles and is an exciting advance in helping children to improve their diets. The program is the result of scientifically rigorous research begun in 1992, by psychologists at the Bangor Food Research Unit (BFRU), based at the University of Wales Bangor, UK.

The Food Dude program is designed for use in primary schools.
The program comprises two key elements:

Video adventures featuring hero figures, called the 'Food Dudes', who like fruit and vegetables and provide effective social models for the children to imitate.
Small rewards (e.g. stickers, notebooks, pencils) to ensure that the children begin to taste the foods.

These additional elements provide support for the main programme:

Food Dude letters
Food Dude Homepack

Learn more about this exciting program

F&V and the burden of cardiovascular disease in Europe

Mon, 04 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0500

135,000 European lives could be saved annually if fruit and vegetable intakes are increased to 600 grams per day. Important policy report from the European Heart Network.

Fruit and vegetable policy and the burden of cardiovascular disease

135.000 European lives could be saved annually if fruit and vegetable intakes are increased to 600 grams per day

Karen Lock and Joceline Pomerleau from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has prepared this very important report for the European Heart Network (EHN). The report is titled Fruit and vegetable policy in the European Union: its effect on the burden of cardiovascular disease and it is a master piece in policy documents that is very likely to impact European agricultural policies.

It is recommended that similar reports are being prepared in other regions of the world also.

In the report it is stated that low fruit and vegetable intake in the EU is a major cause of disability and death due to coronary heart disease and stroke. If all 25 countries in the expanded EU were able to increase fruit and vegetable intake to the minimum recommended levels of 400 g per person per day, this could prevent up to 7% of CHD and 4% of stroke. However, it must be remembered that 400 g per day is the lowest dietary goal. If people across the EU started to consume the same amounts of fruit and vegetables as are eaten by the highest consuming countries such as Spain or Italy, we might be able to reduce the risk of CHD by up to 18% and stroke by 11%. This could prevent over 135 000 deaths from CVD each year.

The report points out that withdrawal of produce from the market at certain levels and the use of import tariffs needs to be changed.

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EHN describes the report using this way:

There is a huge burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Europe. CVD is responsible for 1.9 million (42% of the total) deaths in the European Union per year (Petersen, Peto et al. 2005). The World Health Organization (WHO) World Health Report 2003 reported that CVD makes up 16.7 million (29.2%) of total worldwide deaths, while in the European region CVD was responsible for between 26.8% and 55.8% of total deaths (World Health Organization 2003). Although CVD mortality and incidence have been falling over the last 20 years in most northern, southern and western European countries, they are rising in many central and eastern European countries. CVD remains the leading cause of death in women in all countries of Europe, and in men for all countries except France and San Marino (Petersen, Peto et al. 2005).

Cardiovascular risk factors are well known and mostly amenable to change. Public health policies aimed at reducing rates of cardiovascular diseases have typically emphasized the traditional risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, elevated blood cholesterol and physical inactivity. Dietary interventions have tended to focus on reducing consumption of fat, in particular saturated fat, and salt. In the past less policy attention has been given to the impact of fruit and vegetable consumption. However, this is of growing importance as the nutrition transition, occurring in all but the poorest countries of the world, is resulting in the replacement of traditional plant-based diets rich in fruit and vegetables by diets rich in animal fats, salt and sugar, and low in complex carbohydrates (Popkin 2002). Dietary patterns across Europe, which once displayed cultural differences, are now converging.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effect of the EU Common Agricultural Policy fruit and vegetable regime on the burden of CVD.

Source: www.ehnheart.org

The Stepwise Framework Chart

Preventing Chronic Diseases - New WHO report

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 12:00:00 -0500

WHO proposes a new global goal: to reduce the projected trend of chronic disease death rates by 2% each year until 2015. This would prevent 36 million people dying.

Preventing Chronic Diseases: a vital investment

Yesterday October 5'th 2005 WHO launched this new report. WHO stresses that the global epidemic of chronic disease can be stopped. It is projected that around 17 million people die prematurely each year from chronic disease. The economic consequences are also significant, with countries forgoing billions of dollars over a decade as a result of heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

Dr Robert Beaglehole, WHO Director, Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion said that the real tragedy is that more hasn't been done to avoid this epidemic, as overweight and obesity, and their related chronic diseases, are largely preventable. Approximately 80% of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, and 40% of cancer could be avoided through healthy diet, regular physical activity and avoidance of tobacco use".

New goal and partnerships

WHO proposes a new global goal: to reduce the projected trend of chronic disease death rates by 2% each year until 2015. This would prevent 36 million people dying of chronic diseases in the next 10 years, nearly half of them before they turn 70.

But these problems and their solutions lie outside the control of any one sector. In order to achieve the goal, all sectors from government, private industry, civil society and communities will have to work together. "More and more people are dying too early and suffering too long from chronic diseases," said Dr. Catherine le Galès-Camus, Assistant Director-General of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, "We know what to do, and so we must do it now".

The stepwise framework

In this report the stepwise framework is introduces. The stepwise framework offers a flexible and practical approach to assist ministries of health in balancing diverse needs and priorities while implementing evidence-based interventions. Partnerships among various groups, organizations and sectors are according to this report indispensable.

400 million people
Dr Catherine Le Galès-Camus, WHO Assistant Director-General for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health said that without action, almost 400 million people will die from chronic diseases in the next 10 years. Many of these deaths will occur prematurely, affecting families, communities and countries alike".

The Governments of Canada, Norway, and the United Kingdom supported the the production 'Preventing Chronic Diseases: a vital investment'.

Download the report - it is available in English. Summary also in Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and French.

See also:

Press release from WHO dated October 3rd 2005

Powerpoint presentation presenting this report and the background

Download posters

The Lancet has published a series of articles in support of the new report, which will be available at:

Preventing chronic diseases: how many lives can we save?

Preventing chronic diseases: taking stepwise action

Measuring Dutch Meals

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 12:00:00 -0500

National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands has prepared a 364 page report to the public health minister. Health consequences of smoking and poor diet are compared.

National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has presented this 364 page report to the Dutch Minister of Public Health, Welfare and Sport of the Netherlands on september 1, 2004. It contains an extensive overview and critical analysis of the current scientific knowledge regarding the ‘healthy’ as well as the ‘safety’ aspects of diet and food in the Netherlands.

Diet and smoking compared using DALYs.

DALYs are Disability Adjusted Life Years: a summary measure which combines death and illness, using a disability weighing factor for the seriousness of the disease. The overall health loss caused by an unhealthy diet is comparable to that caused by smoking. Measured in DALYs, the annual health loss due to an unhealthy diet in The Netherlands is between 300,000 and 400,000. This figure includes 245,000 DALYs caused by the unfavourable dietary composition and an unknown proportion of the 215,000 DALYs due to overweight. In the case of smoking, the annual health loss is estimated to be just over 350,000 DALYs.

Focus on environmental change

An integrated strategy seems to offer the best potential for promoting healthier eating habits. Such a strategy must not only address the supply side, but also the consumer and his or her environment. There should therefore be a combination of pricing policy, legislation, guidelines for the catering industry, measures applying KEY MESSAGES MEASURING DUTCH MEALS to public places, health education and a shift in social norms. These measures should eventually lead to the ‘healthy choice’ becoming the ‘easy choice.’ An active approach on the part of government and the various societal organizations is called for.

Download the English summary here.

The full report is in Dutch and can be downloaded for free from:
www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/270555007.html. Later this year
(2005) the full report will also be available in a cover-to-cover translation into
English.

For more information please contact
Hans Verhagen,
Holland