– Most of the arrows point in the wrong direction for the Norwegian diet, says Professor Lene Frost Andersen at the University of Oslo to NTB.
She has been project manager for Norkost 4, a national dietary survey about our eating habits.
Data from close to 2,000 people living in Norway reveals, for example, that only one in seven eats enough fruit, berries and vegetables every day. The intake of fresh fruit and berries in particular has fallen markedly in twelve years, and potato intake has been cut by a fifth. We eat a little more of other vegetables.
The intake of bread decreases by around 30 grams per day because we eat less coarse bread.
In total, the proportion of energy we get from carbohydrates has decreased by 4 percentage points since Norkost 3 from 2010–11 and is now below the recommended level.
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Not following dietary guidelines
Norkost 4 was implemented in 2022 and 2023, and therefore does not cover possible changes that may have come in the wake of new dietary guidelines being launched in August this year. There, the recommendations for fruit, berries and vegetables were adjusted up to at least five, and preferably eight, portions a day. The participants in Norkost 4 ate only three portions on average.
The development also seems to be going in the wrong direction for fish and milk.
– Norkost 4 shows that the diet of adults is to a small extent in line with the new dietary guidelines, says Andersen.
Most people care
– This is a good study which once again clearly shows that much is not going so well, and much should be changed, when it comes to the development of the Norwegian diet, says divisional director Linda Granlund in the Directorate of Health.
A full 55 per cent of the participants are concerned with a healthy diet to a large or very large extent, while a further 39 per cent are partly concerned with it. Only 7 percent say that they are not particularly interested in a healthy diet.
At the same time, half of the participants fall into the overweight or “obese” categories. Seven out of ten also say that they actively try to lose weight or actively do something to keep it off.
– Why don’t they follow the dietary advice then?
– We need stronger means of action. The most important thing for what we put in is price. The price trumps both taste and health when we choose in the store, says Granlund
Unpopular moves
Granlund believes in a healthy tax exchange: cutting taxes on what is healthy, and making unhealthy foods more expensive.
– We know that price instruments work. With better prices, it becomes easier to choose healthy products. But we need some brave politicians to make it happen. Those who introduce such healthy measures will probably not become so popular then and there. But those who got through the smoking law, didn’t they immediately get any praise either?
Granlund also wants measures to make it easier to grab something healthy on the go when you’re craving one or the other.
– As it is now, you must have quite good willpower to avoid unhealthy choices during the course of a day. If you are hungry and go to the canteen, past the kiosk or through the shop, you must be strong not to take anything unhealthy with you.
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The alcohol surprised
The Norkost surveys also provide an opportunity to study the development of the population’s dietary preferences over time. Andersen says she was a little surprised that the proportion of energy from alcohol was highest in the oldest group. The consumption of alcohol has not changed much on average per capita.
On average, the participants also stated that they drink 1.4 deciliters of beer per day, while in Norkost 3 they reported 1.2 deciliters.
– When it comes to wine, it was the other way around. The amount of wine per day is down from 0.6 to 0.4 deciliters of wine in 2022–23.
In the end, Andersen highlights three trends that move in the right direction:
– In any case, the intake of vegetables has not decreased, it is slightly higher among both men and women than in Norkost 3. The intake of sugar-sweetened soft drinks and juice has further decreased. And then it is positive that even though the total fat intake has increased, it is not the unhealthy, saturated fat that has gone up.
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Facts about Norwegian eating habits
The national dietary survey Norkost shows the extent to which people follow the authorities’ dietary advice.
- 12 percent of men and 17 percent of women eat enough fruit, berries and vegetables every day.
- 23 percent of men and 16 percent of women reach the goal of eating enough coarse grain products.
- 21 percent of men and 17 percent of women eat the recommended amount of fatty fish.
- 28 percent of men eat the recommended 50 grams or less of red meat every day. The same applies to 51 percent of women.
- On average, the participants in the study got 18 per cent of their energy from protein, 38 per cent from fat and 40 per cent from carbohydrate.
- It is recommended that between 45 and 60 percent of the energy for most people comes from carbohydrates. A diet with less than 45 percent can be considered moderately reduced in carbohydrates, while less than 30 percent is low-carb.
Source: Norkost 4, Store medical lexicon
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