Cross-cultural study reveals big differences - Food Industry Report - perceptions of food, body, health; Interprofessional Center of Dairy Documentation and Information, France - Brief Article

Eurofood, August 29, 2002

The French National Dairy Council (CIDIL) has announced its OCHA research center has completed the second phase of a cross-cultural survey on perceptions of food, body and health. The results highlight cultural differences among six Western nations in terms of which foods are considered to be most healthy, how important food is for good health, what `eating well' means.

Full results of the study and its implications will be discussed by an international panel of experts during a full-day symposium on 25 September 2002 at the upcoming IDF World Dairy Congress in Paris.

Claude Fischler, leader of the OCHA study and director of research at France's CNRS national scientific research center, said, "Worrying about eating right does not appear to be effective when it comes to staving off health problems like obesity. Nations such as the US, in particular, suffer from acute nutritional anxiety. The study shows that people there are concerned about computing the nutritional and calorific value of meals while the French or Italians focus more on the pleasure of sharing mealtimes."

Yves Boutonnat, managing director of CIDIL and deputy chair of the International Dairy Federation's standing committee for marketing, commented, "Marketers need to adapt to some of the consumer trends that we have observed in this study, e.g. a call for more variety and more information about the food we eat. We need to help consumers boost their enjoyment of eating and worry less!"

Research found that when it comes to rating the health benefits of foods, Europeans and their American counterparts tend to agree: fruit and vegetables score highest, followed by fish. The exceptions are in France, where fish is replaced by dairy products and Switzerland, where it shares third place with cereals. Meat is given its best ratings by the French and cereals in Germany and Switzerland. When asked to rate health content from 110 (0= unhealthy, 10= very healthy), the Europeans all gave wine a "pass" mark, starting at 5.28 out of 10, with the most enthusiastic supporters the British (5.87 out of 10), compared with the French (5.41). However, wine was less well considered by the Americans with 4.44 out of 10.

Despite recent food safety scares, meat was awarded an overall 6.51 out of 10, with consumers' perceptions most positive in France (6.84) and least positive in Germany (5.95). The UK and US sample awarded 6.47 and 6.66 respectively.

In terms of dairy products, UK replies showed that they perceived to be slightly more healthy than meat, (6.5 out of 10), and much more healthy in France, Germany and Switzerland, where scores were between 8.2 and 8.5). The average US score for dairy products was 7.68 out of 10. While most continental Europeans consider live dairy products to be healthy, the British and Americans are wary of unpasteurised products, rating them 4.2 and 4.6 respectively. On the other hand, Americans tend to see vitamin A and D boosts to milk, as a health benefit (marked 7.22 out of 10), unlike the Germans (3.94 out of 10).

EATING WELL: PAIN OR PLEASURE?

In the US, eating well is primarily a question of carefully selecting the right nutrients and eating the right quantities of food--in particular, not too many calories. For many, this is a daily worry: "I think eating is a task," said one young American interviewee, who explained, "I mean, consider the pyramid that you're supposed to follow. You're supposed to have so much bread, so much meat, so much protein every day, so much fruit ... It's impossible to follow that!"

In Britain, on the other hand, people tend to reason in terms of saving time and money: convenience is what counts!

In France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, eating well is much more a question of sharing and conviviality, although there are some slight differences. In Germany, the fact of eating as a family appears to be more important than the actual meal.

For Italians, the content of meals is as important as the sharing. And many French idealize meals with friends and family: they talk about being in the country, taking the time to cook and enjoy simple food in good company.