Consumers are becoming increasingly health conscious, but do not always act accordingly.
Note
The data quoted here is largely taken from a report from the Netherlands Nutrition Centre prepared in 2007. The Netherlands Nutrition Centre in collaboration with the Netherlands Heart Foundation instructed the research office Motivaction to research the knowledge, attitude and need for information of consumers with reference to fats, particularly saturated fat.
Need to react
As a company in the food industry or as a product developer working in it you want to develop healthy products, but also need to react to the attitude of the consumer with regard to fats. Read more
Download
Factsheet Consumer knowledge about fats
General health trend
The general trend is that of growing health consciousness and with this also increasing knowledge about health on the part of the consumer.
In 2005/2006 about 65% of consumers wanted to eat more healthily. The increased focus on health is not, however, always reflected in healthy behaviour, it appears to be difficult to break ingrained habits. This is shown among other things by the increased numbers of people with obesity in recent years.
The intake of fat has decreased in the same period. Fat is often seen as fattening and as a cause of obesity, but overweight is not just caused by fats in the diet, and not even just by the diet. Just as important is the amount of exercise taken, it is a question of balance. Fats are an essential part of a healthy diet. Between twenty and forty percent of the calories in a healthy diet are obtained from fat.
