Healthy choices need to be made easier choices, a Health Department nutritionist said in reaction to an eating habits survey that showed many Maltese like to start off the day with something sweet.
“We have this notion that education is enough but it isn’t,” said Maria Ellul, the department’s chief scientific officer in nutrition, adding that people did not only eat unhealthy foods because of a lack of knowledge but the price and availability of healthier foods also played an important role.
The food consumption report, released last week, revealed that many eat biscuits, chocolates and sweets for breakfast, a matter of concern for another nutritionist, Claire Copperstone.
Processed sugars, commonly found in cakes, soft drinks, sweets and biscuits, are the most dangerous from a health point of view, rather than sugars per se or complex carbohydrates, she said.
Agreeing that nutrition education was important but not enough on its own, Ms Copperstone said there had to be more focus on other aspects for effective intervention. Other issues such as physical activity, the cost of healthy food, portion size control, availability of healthy, tasty food and media involvement in advertising food that was healthy and cheap were all aspects that had to be tackled.
Ms Ellul said: “We need to break down barriers that are keeping people from eating healthily.”
Health promotion policy had to focus on being more than just a campaign for healthy nutrition, with more attention paid to aspects such as catering and agriculture. In some parts of society, Ms Ellul said, the price of healthy food may be an issue, with unhealthy fast foods being cheaper than more nutritious meals.
The survey also found that the average Maltese woman has a body mass index (BMI) of 30.2, ranking her as obese, while the average Maltese man’s BMI stands at 28, meaning he is overweight.
Mario Caruana, one of Mater Dei Hospital’s two dieticians, said apart from culture, a stressful life and inaccurate education was contributing to the results shown in the survey.
Although he found the survey results worrying, Mr Caruana said they did not surprise him as people were being bombarded with nutrition information from the internet, the food industry and unqualified people. The wrong message was being given and the true concept of healthy eating had been lost.
He advised that dietary intervention be dealt with by professional, qualified people such as dieticians and public health nutritionists. “Unfortunately, many other professionals from different fields are giving wrong advice,” he said, adding that changing dietary habits was never easy to accomplish on a long-term basis.