Trends and determinants of change in compliance to dietary guidelines in a Swiss community-dwelling sample

Abstract

Adherence to dietary guidelines is associated with significantly better health outcomes. Studies across the world shows that compliance with the guidelines was low, but data in Switzerland are lacking. Hence, we aimed to assess the 5-year trends in dietary compliance regarding food guidelines in Switzerland in a prospective, population-based observational study. Data from 2882 participants (1591 women, 35-75 years), from the first (2009-2012) and second (2014-2017) follow-up. Dietary intake was assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Compliance with the guidelines of the Swiss society of nutrition was assessed at baseline and 5.5 years afterwards. Prevalence rates for compliance were calculated using the exact Poisson method. Factors associated with changes in compliance (never, shifter or maintainer) were assessed by multinomial logistic regression using "Never compliers" as reference. Overall, improvements in compliance to fruits (42.4% to 45.1%) vegetables (6.9% to 8.6%) and fish (66.6% to 60.5%) were found, while compliance to meat decreased (61.1% to 58.5%). The prevalence of participants complying with at least three dietary recommendations did not change (24.1% to 25.2%). During follow-up, only 11.6% of participants maintained compliance to at least three dietary recommendations, and 62.4% never managed to comply. Female gender and older age were associated with maintaining compliance during the two study periods. In conclusion, compliance with dietary guidelines is a dynamic status, and only a small fraction of the population achieves sustained compliance with at least three guidelines. Almost two thirds of the population never achieve compliance with three guidelines.

Dietary Intake in Population with Metabolic Syndrome: Is the Prevalence of Inadequate Intake Influenced by Geographical Area? Cross-Sectional Analysis from PREDIMED-Plus Study

“…In our study, oldest people (more than 70 years) tend to have a higher consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and fish compared to a younger adult population. Similar findings have been previously reported in a Swiss community-dwelling sample [ 45 ].…”

Cultural Differences in Diet and Determinants of Diet Quality in Switzerland: Results from the National Nutrition Survey menuCH

“…The weak significant association between sex and MDS in the present study was most likely due to the use of sex-specific medians in the calculation of the score. Confirming earlier reports in Switzerland [24,25,26,30], the current results indicated higher scores among non-Swiss participants, which could depend on their country of origin. In fact, a high proportion of non-Swiss menuCH participants originates from Italy, France, Portugal, Spain or other southern European countries (37.2%), where the traditional Mediterranean diet is typically consumed.…”

“…In Switzerland, the effects of sociodemographic and lifestyle factors on diet quality have been investigated in different studies [20,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]. However, since no nutrition survey existed in Switzerland until 2015, most of these results relied on undetailed dietary data or were derived from a single city or region [20,24,25,26,28,29,30]. To fill this gap, the first Swiss National Nutrition Survey menuCH was recently conducted with the aim to assess the dietary habits in a representative sample of the Swiss population [27,31].…”

Twenty-four-year trends and determinants of change in compliance with Swiss dietary guidelines

“…Compliance with the SSN guidelines was low and remained so during the 24-year study period: the percentage of subjects complying with at least 3 guidelines was 26.2% in 1993 and 24.9% in 2016. Those findings agree with a prospective study conducted in the neighbour city of Lausanne, where only 25.2% of the population complied with at least three guidelines [27]. There are few studies worldwide assessing trends in global compliance with dietary guidelines.…”

“…There are few studies worldwide assessing trends in global compliance with dietary guidelines. A likely explanation for the low improvement in global compliance is that the increase in compliance with some guidelines (i.e., fruits and vegetables) was compensated by the decrease in compliance with other guidelines (i.e., dairy) [27]. Compliance with fruits and vegetables guidelines increased in all studied groups, a finding also found in France [28] and in the United States [11], but not in New Zealand [10].…”