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Background: Malnutrition linked to noncommunicable diseases presents major health problems across Europe. The World Health Organisation encourages countries to conduct national dietary surveys to obtain data to inform public health policies designed to prevent noncommunicable diseases. Methods: Data on 27334 participants aged 19-64y were harmonised and pooled across national dietary survey datasets from 12 countries across the WHO European Region. Weighted mean nutrient intakes were age-standardised using the Eurostat 2013 European Standard Population. Associations between country-level Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and key nutrients and nutrient densities were investigated using linear regression. The potential mitigating influence of participant-level educational status was explored. Findings: Higher GDP was positively associated with total sugar intake (5·0% energy for each 10% increase in GDP, 95% CI 0·6, 9·3). Scandinavian countries had the highest vitamin D intakes. Participants with higher educational status had better nutritional intakes, particularly within lower GDP countries. A 10% higher GDP was associated with lower total fat intakes (-0·2% energy, 95% CI -0·3, -0·1) and higher daily total folate intakes (14μg, 95% CI 12, 16) in higher educated individuals. Interpretation: Lower income countries and lower education groups had poorer diet, particularly for micronutrients. We demonstrate for the first time that higher educational status appeared to have a mitigating effect on poorer diet in lower income countries. It illustrates the feasibility and value of harmonising national dietary survey data to inform European policy regarding access to healthy diets, particularly in disadvantaged groups. It specifically highlights the need for strong policies supporting nutritional intakes, prioritising lower education groups and lower income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:An increasing frequency of snacks has been observed in meal pattern studies. Snacks can alter the diet because of their high-energy density and low-nutrient content or on the contrary.Objective:The prominence of snacks in energy intake and food consumption was assessed.Design:Dietary data were collected for 2007 adults by using a computer-assisted 48-h dietary recall in the national FINDIET 2002 survey. Energy intakes and food consumption were aggregated for snacks and for main meals.Results:Daily energy was mostly derived from main meals comprising traditional mixed dishes, milk and bread. However, a snack-dominating meal pattern was observed in 19% of men and 24% of women. This meal pattern was associated with urbanization in both genders and with physical work in men. Higher sucrose intake and lower intake of micronutrients were typical of the snack-dominating meal pattern compared to the others.Conclusions:As snacks appear to have a higher energy density and a lower content of micronutrients than main meals, a snack-dominating meal pattern is inadvisable. However, further studies are needed to examine the association between meal pattern and health status.European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2006) 60, 494–501. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602343; published online 30 November 2005 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable diets are nutritious, culturally acceptable and have low environmental impact. The aim of this study was to identify sustainable diets among actual self-selected diets based on five national dietary surveys (Finland, France, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom), without ex ante assumptions concerning the food content of diets. Using nutrient intakes and dietary greenhouse gas emissions as active variables, energy-adjusted multiple factor analysis and agglomerative hierarchical clustering were applied to identify clusters of diets. The cluster with the lowest dietary GHGE had the lowest nutritional quality. Another cluster displayed a good compromise between nutritional quality and dietary GHGE (21% lower than the average of observed diets) and was therefore considered as more sustainable than the other clusters. Compared to the rest of the sample, diets in the more sustainable cluster were characterized by a larger quantity of plant-based products and lower quantities of meats, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. The average diet in this cluster contained approximately 1000 g per day (g/d) of plant-based products (including 400 g/d of fruit and vegetables, 100 g/d of juices and 500 g/d of other plants) and 400 g/d of animal-based products (including 100 g/d of meat/fish/eggs of which livestock meat represented 20 g/d, 50 g/d of animal-based composite dishes, 30 g/d of cheese and 220 g/d of other dairy products). We concluded that exclusion of entire food categories (e.g., meat) is not necessary to improve the sustainability of European diets. • Self-selected diets were studied because they are likely to be culturally acceptable. • European diets with the best environmental and nutritional compromise were identified. • The greenhouse gas emissions were 21% lower than the average of observed diets. • The diets contained 1 kg of plant-based products and 400 g of animal-based products. • Exclusion of entire categories of food is not a necessity to improve sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]