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Fruit and vegetable availability among ten European countries:how does it compare with the ‘five-a-day’ recommendation?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2007

Androniki Naska ,
Vassilis G. S. Vasdekis ,
Antonia Trichopoulou ,
Sharon Friel ,
Ingrid U. Leonhäuser ,
Olga Moreiras ,
Michael Nelson ,
Anne M. Remaut ,
Anette Schmitt  and
Wlodzimierz Sekula
...Show all authors
Androniki Naska
Affiliation:
Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, National Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Vassilis G. S. Vasdekis
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece
Antonia Trichopoulou*
Affiliation:
Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, National Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Sharon Friel
Affiliation:
National Nutrition Surveillance Centre, Department of Health Promotion, Clinical Science Institute, University College, Galway, Republic of Ireland
Ingrid U. Leonhäuser
Affiliation:
JL University Giessen, Ernährungsberatung & Verbraucherverhalten, Institut für Ernährungswissenschaft, Giessen, Germany
Olga Moreiras
Affiliation:
Departamento de Nutricion y Bromatologia Facultat de Farmacia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Michael Nelson
Affiliation:
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics King's College London, London, SE1 8WA, UK
Anne M. Remaut
Affiliation:
Department of Food Technology and Nutrition Faculty of Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences, University of Gent, Gent, Belgium
Anette Schmitt
Affiliation:
Interdisciplinary Nutrition Policy Group, Luxembourg
Wlodzimierz Sekula
Affiliation:
National Food and Nutrition Institute, Warsaw, Poland
Kerstin U. Trygg
Affiliation:
Institute of Nutrition Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Gábor Zajkás
Affiliation:
National Institute of Food Hygiene and Nutrition, Budapest, Hungary
*
†Corresponding author: Dr Antonia Trichopoulou, fax +30 1 7488 902, email antonia@nut.uoa.gr
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Abstract

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Recasting the role of fruit and vegetables (F&V) in the diet, and planning national and international campaigns to enhance their consumption are major public health service objectives. The present study seeks to describe F&V availability patterns in ten European countries and examine compliance with current recommendations. The mean and median F&V availability (g/person per d) was estimated based on household budget survey data retrieved from the Data Food Networking (DAFNE) databank. Low F&V consumers were identified based on WHO international recommendations (minimum combined F&V intake of about 400 g/person per d) and current conservative guidelines of a minimum daily intake of three portions of vegetables and two portions of fruit. Considerable disparities in F&V availability were found among the surveyed European populations. Only in Mediterranean countries did the mean daily population intake clearly exceed combined F&V recommendations. Dietary patterns were positively skewed in all populations studied, on account of the presence of exceptionally high values among segments of the populations. Moreover, the correlation was unexpectedly weak between the proportion of low fruit and low vegetable consumers (Spearman's correlation coefficient +0·18). More than 50 % of the households in the surveyed populations are likely to consume less than the recommended daily vegetable intake of three portions, and this applies even to the two Mediterranean populations. The efficiency of F&V promoting strategies may be enhanced if F&V are addressed separately; furthermore, interventions that would specifically focus on vegetables are probably needed.

Keywords

Nutrition policyHousehold budget surveysFruit and vegetable availability
Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Nutrition , Volume 84 , Issue 4 , October 2000 , pp. 549 - 556
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 2000

Footnotes

*

The German household budget survey data used in the DAFNE project (German contract database) do not necessarily correspond to the non-anonymised statistical microdata from which the contract database was prepared. The British household budget survey data is Crown copyright. It has been made available by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) through the Data Archive, based at the University of Essex. Neither the ONS nor the Data Archive bear any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation of the data reported here.

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