Abstract
The availability, purchase and consumption of foods high in fat, sugars and salt and low in fibre are linked to the high health and economic burden of noncommunicable diseases, including cancer, in Europe. Therefore, assessing the quality of the food offer is key as feedback to decision makers, as well as to identify good practices and areas of the food supply still requiring urgent action. We combined detailed market share and sales data with nutrition composition data to evaluate the nutritional quality of 14 packaged food and soft drinks categories sold across 22 European countries over the 2015–2018 period. Our analysis shows great variability of the nutritional composition within and among packaged food and soft drinks categories across European countries. Our estimates of the market-share weighted mean, a measure that integrates possible changes in nutrient content with the amount of a product sold to consumers, as well as daily per capita nutrient sale estimates, suggest a small but statistically significant progress in certain food categories only. Overall, the amounts of sugars, saturated fat, salt and fibre being sold to European citizens through these products is not improving to an extent to meet public health objectives.
Highlights
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for the largest share of total healthrelated burden in the European Union (EU): they account for approximately 9 out of every
The largest volumes of salt per day were sold through Processed M & S, Baked Goods and S, D & C; for fibre, only one category (Baked Goods) accounted for approximately 45% of total per capita sales
Dairy, Processed M & S, Baked Goods and Sweet Biscuits accounted for a similar share of the estimated daily per capita sales
Summary
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for the largest share of total healthrelated burden in the European Union (EU): they account for approximately 9 out of every. Among the avoidable risk factors, energy-dense diets high in fat, sugars and salt and low in fibre are one of the key risk factors for NCDs, contributing to the high health and economic burden linked to them [3,4]. Efforts to improve the nutritional quality of the food offerings are underway at the EU level through voluntary policies (Frameworks for National Salt Initiatives (2008) [5], National Initiatives on selected nutrients (2011) [6], the Annexes on Saturated Fat (2012) [7] and Added Sugars (2015) [8] and the roadmap for Action on Food Product Improvement (2016) [9]), and mandatory targets, standards and restrictions on nutrient content of industrially processed foods (i.e., Directive for the prohibition of added sugars in fruit juices (2012) [10] and the Regulation on trans fats (2019) [11]). Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
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