Is there a link between diet and education? AZoLifeSciences speaks to Dr. Holly Rippin to find out more and what we can do to help.
What provoked your research into education and diet?
To date, no research had looked at diets across Europe in this way, in the context of inequalities and socio-economic status.
We wanted to take both an individual and a national level view, and we chose GDP as our national-level indicator of socio-economic status and education as our individual-level indicator.
Education was the indicator that was most applicable and comparable across all the countries in Europe that we studied.
Why is having a healthy diet so important?
It is so important to have a healthy diet. A healthy, balanced diet enables an adequate intake of macronutrients like carbohydrates, protein, and fats, and also micronutrients like vitamins and minerals.
A healthy diet can help prevent overweight and obesity and the noncommunicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes that are associated with this. It can also help prevent conditions that are caused by specific micronutrient deficiencies.
In this way, it can contribute to the achievement of many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Image Credit: margouillat photo/Shutterstock.com
Many people have a poor diet. What effects can a poor diet have on an individual’s health?
A poor diet can impact on an individual’s health in a variety of ways. If the body does not get enough, or gets too much, of what it needs, then it will not function to its full potential and could result in poor health.
How did you carry out your research into education and diet?
This work is the first to combine national diet survey data from WHO European Member States spanning all regions of Europe. It provides the largest representative diet survey dataset across WHO Europe, providing an important source of evidence on which to base policy.
We used national diet surveys from different countries across Europe to get data on education, GDP, and nutrient intakes in these countries.
What did your research discover?
We found that educational status appears to have a positive influence on a healthy diet, particularly in low-income countries, according to new research examining European nutritional data.
It shows for the first time that higher educational status appeared to have a mitigating effect on a poorer diet in lower-income countries.
As individual education level increased so did nutritional intake encouraged as part of a healthy diet, particularly iron and total folate.
The findings highlight the need for strong policies supporting good nutrition, prioritizing lower education groups.
Why is poor diet a major health problem?
Poor diet and malnutrition linked to noncommunicable diseases, such as obesity, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, presents major health problems across Europe.
In 2018, 59% of adults in the WHO European Region were overweight or obese and noncommunicable diseases are the leading cause of death, disease, and disability in the region.
How could your research be used to help promote healthy diets?
We hope that our study will be used to inform evidence and policy, such as strategies to support education in lower education groups and lower-income countries, which could be effective in improving nutrition, particularly in disadvantaged groups across Europe.
We hope that policymakers across Europe will use this information to inform their nutrition policies in the future and prioritize these vulnerable groups.
What strategies could be implemented to help support education in disadvantaged groups?
That is up to policymakers to decide – our research focuses on national level diet survey data and what this shows us about individual-level diets in different population groups.
We hope that policymakers will use our research, which shows that diet and education are linked, to inform policy and promote education and healthy diets in disadvantaged groups.
Do you believe that your research will help to tackle problems with nutrition in disadvantaged people?
We certainly hope so. Our research clearly demonstrates that educational status appears to have a positive influence on a healthy diet, particularly in low-income countries.
We very much hope that policymakers will use this evidence to take action and develop a policy that promotes education and healthy diets in disadvantaged groups.
Image Credit: coffee prince/Shutterstock.com
What are the next steps in your research?
This was a great collaborative effort between 12 countries across Europe. We hope that monitoring and surveillance in the form of national dietary surveys continue in these countries and other countries across Europe.
The World Health Organization encourages countries to conduct national diet surveys to gather data to inform public health policies to prevent ill health. It would be interesting and beneficial to extend this research to further countries across the WHO European Region.
Where can readers find more information?
The paper Inequalities in education and income are associated with poorer diet: a pooled analysis of individual participant data across 12 European countries is published in PLOS ONE on 7 May 2020 (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232447)
The Nutritional Epidemiology Group based at the School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds is a designated WHO Collaborating Centre in Nutritional Epidemiology.
The center supports the WHO Office for Europe and other global officers in providing assistance to the WHO Member States relating to the collection, analysis, and interpretation of dietary data in the context of nutritional epidemiology.
About Dr. Holly Rippin
Holly is a Consultant at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and is a registered nutritionist in the UK.
She spent her early career in the food industry, before completing a Ph.D. and postdoctoral position at the University of Leeds Nutritional Epidemiology research group.
Her research interests span European national dietary surveys, food portion sizes and trans fatty acids, sustainable and healthy diets, and NCD prevention.