Interventions in healthy eating

The Foundation for Innovation in Glasshouse Horticulture (SIGN) commissioned Dr. Maaike de Vries and Lea Bouwmeester to explore which interventions can speed up the transition to a healthy diet. This led to the report 'What do we eat tomorrow? The report was presented during the Hero Festival on 11 April in Rotterdam.

Topics

The core question of this report is 'How can we promote the consumption of fruit and vegetables? It considers the current daily consumption, how bad that is, and why. They also look at the reason why we don't eat enough fruit and vegetables.

Key messages

The authors of the report state that there is not one product, one rule, one working method, one sector, one party or one holy grail to make the Netherlands eat more fruit and vegetables. Promoting the consumption of fruit and vegetables requires multiple actions and cooperation. They have summarised this in a few key messages:

- If we really want to, we know how to increase the consumption of fruit and vegetables. Achieving this requires sharp social and political choices and an innovative product range that fits in well with the wishes and needs of consumers.
- Make the Netherlands the innovation laboratory for fruit and vegetables.
- Most people want what they see and what is available. If we want people to eat fruit and vegetables, fruit and vegetables must be a standard offer: attractive, easy, affordable, always and everywhere available.
- Reverse the relationship between fruit and vegetables and other offerings so that fruit and vegetables form the main part: the 'new normal'.
- More fruit and vegetables requires public support. Encourage, enlarge and strengthen (existing) initiatives of active citizens from society. Give children and young people an explicit voice in this.
- Employers, education and care have a major role to play, bear responsibility and set an example, precisely because many people spend a large part of their day at school or at work.
- Promoting the consumption of fruit and vegetables requires action and cooperation from different sectors and actors, at different levels; from citizens, from employers, health care and education, from products and providers and finally from the government.

Download the full report here (Dutch only)