Trend topic "healthy eating" - but how?

What influences which foods are bought?

The choice of food that ends up in our shopping basket is determined by a variety of factors. These include price, availability and origin, but also experience and socio-cultural conditioning. If food meets our specific quality requirements and something tastes good to us, we buy it again and again, more or less detached from the health aspect.

How big is the influence of a healthy diet on health?

From a scientific point of view, our lifestyle - i.e. our dietary and exercise behaviour, but also the consumption of harmful products such as tobacco and alcohol - significantly determines our state of health and is significantly responsible for the development of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. In addition, of course, there are cellular processes that influence the activity of genes and fundamental genetic aspects, influences of the gut microbiome (the microorganisms in the gut) and psychological aspects such as stress. From an individual point of view, we are not always aware of this because often our diets are linked to certain behaviours and socio-cultural settings in which they take place: For example, in company we eat more and usually heartier than usual, and this is often accompanied by the consumption of alcohol and tobacco products to a greater extent. When we invite guests to dinner, we usually serve dishes with animal products such as meat and fish, even if we profess to be flexitarians who rarely eat meat.

Is nutrition the most important health factor?

No, nutrition is only one building block! In addition to a healthy and varied diet, physical activity is also an important factor that influences our health. Statistically, we are moving less and less in everyday life and eating more and more, which is now leading to the development of overweight and obesity of pandemic proportions worldwide due to a positive energy balance throughout the day.

What needs to happen to promote sustainable and healthy diets?

The framework conditions need to be adjusted so that the healthy and sustainable choice, becomes the easiest choice. This means that the price and availability of healthy food must become more low-threshold.

What is the behavioural gap between the results of studies on purchasing behaviour and everyday behaviour?

Dietary and consumer behaviour is influenced by a variety of individual and socio-cultural factors. The gap between "intending to do something" and "doing something" is something we all often notice in ourselves. Why we actually eat or buy something else despite knowing, for example, about the economic and ecological advantages of a diet with regional food or the intention to buy regional food cannot be fully explained. Nutrition and food consumption are primarily based on habituation: we call this habitualised behaviour, which is often carried out automatically and without reflection. Even if a person's attitude and socio-cultural imprint favour the consumption of regional food, external variables such as availability, access or price of regional food can lead to the intention not being translated into the desired behaviour. Logistical challenges should also be mentioned here, as it is often very time-consuming and complex for smaller regional businesses to deliver goods to regional buyers. Solutions for this are currently being researched in a third-party funded project at the faculty. (For example: https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/pressemitteilung/regionalvermarktung and https://www.foodscm.uni-bayreuth.de/de/projekte/index.html ).

What does the Food and Health Sciences degree programme specifically teach in these areas?

In the study programme "Food and Health Sciences" we deal with current challenges in the field of nutrition and health. We look at this from very different perspectives. One important topic is how to eat healthily and sustainably. In our teaching, we deal with scientific, legal, economic and social science aspects. These include the basics of nutritional epidemiology (research into the causes and distribution of diet-related diseases), behavioural and action theories in relation to nutrition, communication strategies and approaches to promoting sustainable behaviour, approaches to health promotion and prevention, as well as the basics of law and economics and aspects of food, health and data law. In addition, we deal with transformation-theoretical approaches, i.e. those that are intended to initiate social change. Students apply these to their own projects and put them into practice. The focus of natural science subjects includes chemical basics, molecular and cell biological concepts, content on human biology and nutritional physiology, as well as nutritional and plant biochemistry. We study how the body reacts to food and how nutrition affects health. In further building and interdisciplinary modules, students learn how healthy tissues differ from diseased tissues and how poor nutrition can contribute to the development of diseases. In addition, students learn how important exercise is to stay healthy, especially as one gets older. In interdisciplinary case studies as well as in the electives, the collected knowledge is finally applied to derive ideas and solutions for the future.