Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the Gambia
Facilitating dietary change is pivotal to improving population health, increasing food system resilience, and minimizing adverse impacts on the environment, but assessment of the current ‘status-quo’ and identification of bottlenecks for improvement has been lacking to date. We assessed deviation of...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac9326 |
| _version_ | 1827869786826080256 |
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| author | Zakari Ali Pauline F D Scheelbeek Jyoti Felix Bakary Jallow Amanda Palazzo Alcade C Segnon Petr Havlík Andrew M Prentice Rosemary Green |
| author_facet | Zakari Ali Pauline F D Scheelbeek Jyoti Felix Bakary Jallow Amanda Palazzo Alcade C Segnon Petr Havlík Andrew M Prentice Rosemary Green |
| author_sort | Zakari Ali |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Facilitating dietary change is pivotal to improving population health, increasing food system resilience, and minimizing adverse impacts on the environment, but assessment of the current ‘status-quo’ and identification of bottlenecks for improvement has been lacking to date. We assessed deviation of the Gambian diet from the EAT-Lancet guidelines for healthy and sustainable diets and identified leverage points to improve nutritional and planetary health. We analysed the 2015/16 Gambian Integrated Household Survey dataset comprising food consumption data from 12 713 households. Consumption of different food groups was compared against the EAT-Lancet reference diet targets to assess deviation from the guidelines. We computed a ‘sustainable and healthy diet index (SHDI)’ based on deviation of different food groups from the EAT-Lancet recommendations and modelled the socio-economic and geographic determinants of households that achieved higher scores on this index, using multivariable mixed effects regression. The average Gambian diet had very low adherence to EAT-Lancet recommendations. The diet was dominated by refined grains and added sugars which exceeded the recommendations. SHDI scores for nutritionally important food groups such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, dairy, poultry, and beef and lamb were low. Household characteristics associated with higher SHDI scores included: being a female-headed household, having a relatively small household size, having a schooled head of the household, having a high wealth index, and residing in an urban settlement. Furthermore, diets reported in the dry season and households with high crop production diversity showed increased adherence to the targets. While average Gambian diets include lower amounts of food groups with harmful environmental footprint, they are also inadequate in healthy food groups and are high in sugar. There are opportunities to improve diets without increasing their environmental footprint by focusing on the substitution of refined grains by wholegrains, reducing sugar and increasing fruit and vegetables consumption. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:49:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-931d88502efa460d9962ef7ddd969919 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:49:05Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-931d88502efa460d9962ef7ddd9699192023-08-09T15:17:27ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262022-01-01171010404310.1088/1748-9326/ac9326Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the GambiaZakari Ali0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8129-2230Pauline F D Scheelbeek1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6209-2284Jyoti Felix2Bakary Jallow3Amanda Palazzo4Alcade C Segnon5https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9751-120XPetr Havlík6Andrew M Prentice7Rosemary Green8Nutrition and Planetary Health Theme, MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , Banjul, The GambiaFaculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , London, United Kingdom; Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , London, United KingdomFaculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , London, United KingdomNational Nutrition Agency (NaNA) , Banjul, The GambiaInternational Institute for Applied Systems Analysis , Laxenburg, AustriaCGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) , Bamako, Mali; Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) , Dakar, Senegal; Faculty of Agronomic Sciences, University of Abomey-Calavi , Cotonou, BeninInternational Institute for Applied Systems Analysis , Laxenburg, AustriaNutrition and Planetary Health Theme, MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , Banjul, The GambiaFaculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , London, United Kingdom; Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , London, United KingdomFacilitating dietary change is pivotal to improving population health, increasing food system resilience, and minimizing adverse impacts on the environment, but assessment of the current ‘status-quo’ and identification of bottlenecks for improvement has been lacking to date. We assessed deviation of the Gambian diet from the EAT-Lancet guidelines for healthy and sustainable diets and identified leverage points to improve nutritional and planetary health. We analysed the 2015/16 Gambian Integrated Household Survey dataset comprising food consumption data from 12 713 households. Consumption of different food groups was compared against the EAT-Lancet reference diet targets to assess deviation from the guidelines. We computed a ‘sustainable and healthy diet index (SHDI)’ based on deviation of different food groups from the EAT-Lancet recommendations and modelled the socio-economic and geographic determinants of households that achieved higher scores on this index, using multivariable mixed effects regression. The average Gambian diet had very low adherence to EAT-Lancet recommendations. The diet was dominated by refined grains and added sugars which exceeded the recommendations. SHDI scores for nutritionally important food groups such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, dairy, poultry, and beef and lamb were low. Household characteristics associated with higher SHDI scores included: being a female-headed household, having a relatively small household size, having a schooled head of the household, having a high wealth index, and residing in an urban settlement. Furthermore, diets reported in the dry season and households with high crop production diversity showed increased adherence to the targets. While average Gambian diets include lower amounts of food groups with harmful environmental footprint, they are also inadequate in healthy food groups and are high in sugar. There are opportunities to improve diets without increasing their environmental footprint by focusing on the substitution of refined grains by wholegrains, reducing sugar and increasing fruit and vegetables consumption.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac9326dietary sustainabilityEAT-Lancet dietdiet compositionGambiaenvironmental footprint |
| spellingShingle | Zakari Ali Pauline F D Scheelbeek Jyoti Felix Bakary Jallow Amanda Palazzo Alcade C Segnon Petr Havlík Andrew M Prentice Rosemary Green Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the Gambia Environmental Research Letters dietary sustainability EAT-Lancet diet diet composition Gambia environmental footprint |
| title | Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the Gambia |
| title_full | Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the Gambia |
| title_fullStr | Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the Gambia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the Gambia |
| title_short | Adherence to EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the Gambia |
| title_sort | adherence to eat lancet dietary recommendations for health and sustainability in the gambia |
| topic | dietary sustainability EAT-Lancet diet diet composition Gambia environmental footprint |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac9326 |
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