HOW WE EAT WHAT WE EAT

A PORTRAIT OF MEAL CONSUMPTION IN PORTUGAL

Worldwide, overweight and obesity grew from 857 million in 1980 to 1.9 billion in 2016. In Portugal alone, over half of adults and a third of teenaged children are currently overweight, with women, the elderly, the poorer and the less educated being at high risk of obesity.

To address this global epidemic, EU public health policy is shifting focus from what people eat to how they eat it.

Sound policy design and implementation in this area are crucially dependent on the availability and reliability of information on contextualized food consumption behavior.

Yet, there is a dearth of accurate, comprehensive, systematic and up-to-date information about at- and away-from-home meal consumption.

AIMS

1. Identify extant sources of statistical information about at- and away-from-home meal consumption in Portugal and create an open-access repository that meaningfully aggregates, interprets and disseminates this information;

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2. Comparatively analyze meal preparation and consumption patterns in Portugal, UK, BE and US between 2000 and 2020; identify key consumer segments and meal behavior drivers/trends;

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3. Develop and validate a MEAL module for integration in national surveys.

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