Disentangling nutrition facts from fiction: Towards healthy and sustainable consumption in industrialized societies

Authors

  • Clara Gómez-Donoso University of Navarra (Spain).
  • Miguel A. Martínez-González University of Navarra (Spain).
  • Maira Bes-Rastrollo University of Navarra (Spain).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16202

Keywords:

nutrition transition, ultraprocessed food, non-communicable diseases, environmental sustainability, public health strategies

Abstract

Over the last centuries, in the context of industrialization, globalization, and urbanization, profound dietary changes have occurred. Ubiquitous access to cheap, readily available and highly palatable unhealthy products, together with aggressive marketing that significantly influences social norms, have led to overconsumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. This has not only been associated with a higher prevalence of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, but also with detrimental effects on the world’s natural resources. Broader and braver public health measures favoring the availability and affordability of healthy, minimally processed foods should be implemented in conjunction with educational strategies to re-encourage a healthy and sustainable food consumption.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Clara Gómez-Donoso, University of Navarra (Spain).

Pharmacist and PhD candidate in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra (Spain). She is supported by a predoctoral contract for training in health research (PFIS) (FI18/00073) of the Carlos III Health Institute.

Miguel A. Martínez-González, University of Navarra (Spain).

Full Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra (Spain), Adjunct Full Professor at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (USA), group coordinator of the Spanish Biomedical Research Centre in Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn), and principal investigator in the projects SUN, PREDIMED, and PREDIMED-Plus. 

Maira Bes-Rastrollo, University of Navarra (Spain).

Full Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra (Spain), principal investigator at the Healthcare Research Institute of Navarre (IdiSNA) and associated researcher at the Spanish Biomedical Research Centre in Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn). 

References

Bach-Faig, A., Berry, E., Lairon, D., Reguant, J. Trichopoulou, A., Dernini, S., … Serra-Majem, L. (2011). Mediterranean diet pyramid today. Science and cultural updates. Public Health Nutrition, 14(12), 2274–2284. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980011002515

Bes-Rastrollo, M., Schulze, M. B., Ruiz-Canela, M., & Martínez-González, M. A. (2013). Financial conflicts of interest and reporting bias regarding the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain: a systematic review of systematic reviews. PLoS Medicine, 10(12), e1001578. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001578

De Oliveira Otto, M. C., Anderson, C. A. M., Dearborn, J. L., Ferranti, E. P., Mozaffarian, D., Rao, G., Wylie-Rosett, J., & Lichtenstein, A. H. (2018). Dietary diversity: Implications for obesity prevention in adult populations: A science advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 138(11), e160–e168. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000595

Díez, J., Bilal, U., & Franco, M. (2019). Unique features of the Mediterranean food environment: Implications for the prevention of chronic diseases Rh: Mediterranean food environments. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 72, 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-018-0311-y

Domínguez, L. J., Bes-Rastrollo, M., Basterra-Gortari, F. J., Gea, A., Barbagallo, M., & Martínez-González, M. A. (2018). Should we recommend reductions in saturated fat intake or in red/processed meat consumption? The SUN prospective cohort study. Clinical Nutrition, 37(4), 1389–1398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2017.06.013

Fabbri, A., Lai, A., Grundy, Q., & Bero, L. A. (2018). The influence of industry sponsorship on the research agenda: A scoping review. American Journal of Public Health, 108(11), e9–e16. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304677

Fooks, G. J., Williams, S., Box, G., & Sacks, G. (2019). Corporations’ use and misuse of evidence to influence health policy: A case study of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation. Globalization and Health, 15(1), 56. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-019-0495-5

Global Burden Disease 2017 Diet Collaborators. (2019). Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The Lancet, 393(10184), 1958–1972. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30041-8

Global Nutrition Report. (2018). Shining a light to spur action on nutrition. Development Initiatives. https://globalnutritionreport.org/reports/global-nutrition-report-2018/

Imamura, F., Micha, R., Khatibzadeh, S., Fahimi, S., Shi, P., Powles, J., Mozaffarian, D. (2015). Dietary quality among men and women in 187 countries in 1990 and 2010: A systematic assessment. Lancet Global Health, 3(3), e132–e142. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(14)70381-X

Martínez-González, M. A., Gea, A., & Ruiz-Canela, M. (2019). The Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular health. Circulation Research, 124(5), 779–798. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.313348

Martínez-González, M. A., & Martín-Calvo, N. (2019). Ultraprocessed Foods and Public Health: A Need for Education. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 94(11), 2156–2157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2019.09.021

Moodie, R., Stuckler, D., Monteiro, C., Sheron, N., Neal, B., Thamarangsi, T., Lincoln, P., Caswell, S., & Lancet NCD Action Group. (2013). Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food and drink industries. The Lancet, 381(9867), 670–679. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)62089-3

Monteiro, C. A., Moubarac, J. C., Cannon, G., Ng, S.W., & Popkin, B. (2013). Ultraprocessed products are becoming dominant in the global food system. Obesity Reviews, 14, 21–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12107

O’Connor, A. (2015, August 9). Coca-Cola funds scientists who shift blame for obesity away from bad diets. The New York Times.

O’Dowd, A. (2017). Spending on junk food advertising is nearly 30 times what government spends on promoting healthy eating. British Medical Journal, 359, j4677. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j4677

Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2010). Merchants of doubt. Bloomsbury Press.

Pinto, M. F. (2017). To know or better not to: Agnotology and the social construction of ignorance in commercially driven research. Science & Technology Studies, 30, 53–72. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.61030

Rey-López, J. P., & Gonzalez, C. A. (2019). Research partnerships between Coca-Cola and health organizations in Spain. European Journal of Public Health, 29(5), 810–815. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky175

Swinburn, B. A., Kraak, V. I., Allender, S., Atkins, V. J., Baker, P. I., Bogard, J. R., … Dietz, W. H. (2019). The global syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change: The Lancet commission report. The Lancet, 393(10173), 791–846. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32822-8

VanderWeele, T. J., McNeely, E., & Koh, H. K. (2019). Reimaging health-flourishing. JAMA, 7(17), 1667–1668. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.3035

Willett, W., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., Lang, T., Vermeulen, S., Garnett, T., Tilman, D., DeClerck, F., Wood, A., Jonell, M., Clark, M., Gordon, L. J., Fanzo, J., Hawkes, C., Zurayk, R., Rivera, J. A., De Vries, W., Majele Sibanda, L., … Murray, C. J. L. (2019). Food in the anthropocene: The EAT-Lancet commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet, 393(10170), 447–492. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2021-01-21

How to Cite

Gómez-Donoso, C., Martínez-González, M. A., & Bes-Rastrollo, M. (2021). Disentangling nutrition facts from fiction: Towards healthy and sustainable consumption in industrialized societies. Metode Science Studies Journal, (11), 123–129. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16202
Metrics
Views/Downloads
  • Abstract
    1443
  • PDF
    562
  • (Español)
    0

Issue

Science's structures (2021)

Section

Good to eat. Food and health at a time of information overload

License

All the documents in the OJS platform are open access and property of their respective authors.

Authors publishing in the journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors keep the rights and guarantee Metode Science Studies Journal the right to be the first publication of the document, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of authorship and publication in the journal.
  2. Authors are allowed and encouraged to spread their work through electronic means using personal or institutional websites (institutional open archives, personal websites or professional and academic networks profiles) once the text has been published.

Metrics

Similar Articles

> >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.