Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Environmental impact of dietary choices
Development and validation of sustainable models of personalised/precision nutrition based on anthropometric, demographic, nutritional status, lifestyle habits, perceptive characteristics, psychosocial, metabolic response, genetic and metagenetic characteristics, also developing predictive tools for the identification of specific phenotypes and appropriate intervention strategies. Tasks include the definition and validation of improved dietary patterns to cover individual nutritional needs through sustainable and affordable foods/preparations (in connection with Spoke 1, 5 and 7) and the development of tools for the prediction at individual level of the metabolic, psychosocial, and physiological response to food intake (in connection with Spoke 6).
Definition of personalised/precision sustainable dietary patterns based on measurable factors (M24)
Dietary choices have been demonstrated to have a tremendous impact on human health. Furthermore, food production is a significant contributor to environmental change, with estimates indicating that it accounts for approximately one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and two-thirds of freshwater use. A global trend towards unhealthy dietary habits is a significant contributor to the prevalence of obesity and dietary-related non-communicable diseases, as well as an increasing impact on global environmental resources. If current trends continue unchecked, food production will become the primary contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, land clearing, and a leading behavioral risk factor for premature death worldwide. Most existing studies investigating the potential impact of dietary patterns (i.e., the Mediterranean diet) and dietary changes are modelling studies with theoretical models, while empirical investigations of the association between dietary patterns and environmental impact are currently limited.
Data from an existing sample of southern Italian individuals will be analyzed. The sample included about 2,000 individuals of all ages (older than 18 y) for which background variables (age, sex, education, etc.) have been collected. Dietary data were collected through a 110-item food frequency questionnaire validated for the Italian population. Dietary intakes will be used to estimate the environmental impact of individual food consumed. Various health outcomes (including metabolic and mental health outcomes) were measured through various instruments and will be considered for the association analyses.
We expect to provide new results on the actual environmental impact of dietary patterns adopted in southern Italy as well as their potential association with various health outcomes. The results will be used to create and calibrate a dietary score useful to estimate the environmental impact of the diet.
