Consumers’ awareness of food-based dietary guidelines in Germany

Peer-reviewed | Manuscript received: February 2, 2017 | Revision accepted: March 31, 2017

Results of a representative survey

Introduction

The German Nutrition Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung e. V. [DGE]) creates the official food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG • Box below) for the general population in Germany. The DGE publishes these recommendations by means of the “10 guidelines of the DGE for a wholesome diet” as written text and by means of two graphical presentations, the DGE Nutrition Circle and the Three-Dimensional DGE Food Pyramid. The first two of these three models are aimed directly at consumers, whereas the pyramid is intended to be used by trained specialists who work with consumers, particularly in nutrition counselling and education [1, 2].

According to the European Food Safe- ty Authority (EFSA), the implementation of FBDG should be accompanied by monitoring and evaluation of any effects in order to allow any necessary changes to be made to the FBDG or their implementation [3]. To date, either only limited evaluations of the implementation and effects of national FBDG have been carried out, or research results regarding successes and failures have not been published or made available [4, 5]. A large part of the available literature comes from the USA (e.g. [6–10]). The lack of evaluation of FBDG raises the question of whether they are effective and whether they do indeed play a role in changing consumer behavior as intended, and in improving the nutrition situation or reducing the burden of chronic diseases in the population [5].

To date, there has been no research into whether consumers are familiar with the DGE FBDG and what they have learned from them. After all, simply knowing about the FBDG does not automatically mean understanding them and changing behavior accordingly, and it is a well known fact that there is no direct route from knowledge to action [5, 6, 11]. However, achieving a good level of public awareness of the FBDG is a crucial step in getting people to implement them [6, 12].

Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) are simple recommendations based on proven scientific knowledge regarding the association between nutrition and health. The focus here is on foods, food groups, and nutrition patterns, which makes these guidelines different from nutrient-based recommendations.

Abstract

The data for this study on consumer awareness of food-based dietary guidelines of the German Nutrition Society (DGE) was collected by computer-assisted telephone interviews of adults living in Germany, using a standardized questionnaire. The sample of 1,759 interviewees was representative of the adult population in Germany regarding the distribution of age, sex, and level of education. 14% of interviewees reported that they knew the “10 guidelines of the DGE for a wholesome diet”, and 10% reported that they were familiar with the DGE Nutrition Circle. The models were familiar to more women than men. There were also differences in familiarity with the individual models depending on age – younger people were less likely to know the “10 guidelines of the DGE for a wholesome diet”. The most well-known dietary recommendation was “eat plenty of vegetables and fruit” (this was familiar to 77% of those who were familiar with the DGE models, and to 65% of those who were not). The descriptive analysis of the data, taken together with results of an ongoing multivariate analysis and qualitative interviews, is the basis for a target group segmentation and further development of the communication measures.

Keywords: dietary recommendations, food-based dietary guidelines, communication, consumer survey

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