A diet following Finnish nutrition recommendations does not contribute to the current epidemic of obesity

Abstract

Objective: Recently, the general public opinion is that nutritional recommendations promote obesity rather than prevent it. We created the Recommended Finnish Diet Score (RFDS) that illustrates the Finnish nutrition recommendations and assessed whether this score is associated with BMI, waist circumference (WC) and body fat percentage (BF%). Design: Cross-sectional study included two phases of the National FINRISK 2007 Study. Diet was assessed using a validated FFQ. Height, weight, WC and BF% were measured, and BMI values were calculated. The RFDS was developed based on the national nutrition recommendations. Conclusions: A diet following nutrition recommendations is likely to help to maintain normal WC and BF%. These findings could be useful for dietary counselling and the prevention of obesity.

Adherence to the Spanish dietary guidelines and its association with obesity in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Granada study

“…By using this scoring system, we considered the fact that consumption of food groups in an excessive (positive energy balance) or deficient (less benefit from nutrient-rich food) manner is unfavourable. This method is based on the one developed by von Ruesten et al (13) for the German dietary guidelines, instead of using cut points for ranking individuals, as has been done in previous studies (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19) . We standardized the SFP score for energy intake to make isoenergetic comparisons and because this procedure does not affect measures of diet quality, as was confirmed when examining the non-energy adjusted SFP score and its association with obesity.…”

“…However, only a few have focused on obesity risk as an outcome (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19) . The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) has been evaluated in relation to obesity risk in a prospective (14) study and in a crosssectional study (15) , showing that this index is an important predictor of obesity.…”

Effects of frequency, intensity, duration and volume of walking interventions on CVD risk factors: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis of randomised controlled trials among inactive healthy adults

“…Representative SDs were obtained from the MONICA Population Survey data56 for body mass, BMI, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and total and HDL cholesterol. For VO 2 , the SD was taken from a Norwegian study of 3816 participants57 and for per cent body fat from the FINRISK 2007 study 58…”

Food and nutrient intakes in young adults born preterm

“…We assessed the adherence to the recommended Finnish diet by using a predefined dietary index. Recent findings have shown that a diet following the Finnish nutrition recommendations helps in preventing overweight and obesity (24). Although the index used does not take into account all dietary components, it provides a useful tool for assessing the healthiness of diet.…”

“…Adherence to recommended diet. To assess the overall quality of the diet, we used the Recommended Finnish Diet Index (RDI) (24), which is based on the Finnish nutrition recommendations, published in 2005 ( (ref. 25)).…”