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Making personalised nutrition the easy choice: creating policies to break down the barriers and reap the benefits

Yes / Personalised diets based on people’s existing food choices, and/or phenotypic, and/or genetic information
hold potential to improve public dietary-related health. The aim of this analysis, therefore, has been to
examine the degree to which factors which determine uptake of personalised nutrition vary between
EU countries to better target policies to encourage uptake, and optimise the health benefits of personalised
nutrition technology. A questionnaire developed from previous qualitative research was used to
survey nationally representative samples from 9 EU countries (N = 9381). Perceived barriers to the uptake
of personalised nutrition comprised three factors (data protection; the eating context; and, societal
acceptance). Trust in sources of information comprised four factors (commerce and media; practitioners;
government; family and, friends). Benefits comprised a single factor. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was
employed to compare differences in responses between the United Kingdom; Ireland; Portugal; Poland;
Norway; the Netherlands; Germany; and, Spain. The results indicated that respondents in Greece, Poland,
Ireland, Portugal and Spain, rated the benefits of personalised nutrition highest, suggesting a particular
readiness in these countries to adopt personalised nutrition interventions. Greek participants were more
likely to perceive the social context of eating as a barrier to adoption of personalised nutrition, implying a
need for support in negotiating social situations while on a prescribed diet. Those in Spain, Germany,
Portugal and Poland scored highest on perceived barriers related to data protection. Government was
more trusted than commerce to deliver and provide information on personalised nutrition overall. This
was particularly the case in Ireland, Portugal and Greece, indicating an imperative to build trust, particularly
in the ability of commercial service providers to deliver personalised dietary regimes effectively in
these countries. These findings, obtained from a nationally representative sample of EU citizens, imply
that a parallel, integrated, public-private delivery system would capture the needs of most potential
consumers. / Food4me is the acronym of the EU FP7 Project ‘‘Personalised nutrition: an integrated analysis of opportunities and challenges” (Contract No. KBBE.2010.2.3-02, ProjectNo.265494), http:// www.food4me.org/.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/8904
Date16 August 2016
CreatorsStewart-Knox, Barbara, Markovina, Jerko, Rankin, A., Bunting, B.P., Kuznesof, S., Fischer, A.R.H., van der Lans, I.A., Poinhos, R., de Almeida, M.D.V., Panzone, L., Gibney, M.J., Frewer, L.J.
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, final draft paper
Rights© 2016 Elsevier. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's selfarchiving policy. This manuscript version is made available under the the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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