Time to address continued poor vegetable intake in Australia for prevention of chronic disease

Abstract

Background: Australian and most international Dietary Guidelines recommend people consume more fruits and vegetables (F&V) to maintain a healthy weight and reduce chronic disease risk. Previous Australian and international surveys have shown sub-optimal consumption of F&V.

Objectives: This study aimed to assess adults' F&V consumption, knowledge of recommended servings, readiness to change, barriers/enabling factors, so that this knowledge might be used for campaigns that support improved consumption.

Material and methods: An online survey of a representative sample of adults living in New South Wales, Australia (n = 2474) measuring self-reported F&V consumption; attitudes towards F&V consumption; stage of change for increasing F&V; barriers to consumption; and knowledge of cancer-health benefits.

Results: F&V consumption was below recommendations, with vegetable consumption notably low. Only 10% of participants ate at least five servings of vegetables/day (median intake was two daily servings), and 57% consumed two servings fruit/day. There was poor recognition that intake of vegetables was inadequate and this was a barrier to improving vegetable consumption; with preferences for other foods, habit and cost also important barriers. Key barriers to increasing fruit intake were habit, preferences for other foods, perishability, and cost. For vegetable consumption, 49% of participants were in the pre-contemplation stage of change, whereas for fruits 56% were in the action/maintenance stage. Sixty-four percent of respondents believed that eating F&V would protect against cancer, with 56% reporting they thought not eating enough F&V would cause cancer.

Implications: Understanding what motivates and prevents people from consuming F&V is important for developing effective health promotion programs. Similar to previous surveys, there has been little shift in F&V consumption. Social marketing campaigns have been shown to improve health-related behaviours, and this study may assist in identifying audience segmentation for better targeted campaigns.

Keywords: Barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption; Consumption; Fruit; Vegetables.