45% of Italians consume savory snacks at least once a week, 34% sweets and candies, 31% snacks, 20% protein bars and 16% energy drinks.
The phenomenon takes on even more alarming proportions among young people.
61% consume salty snacks at least once a week, 47% snacks, 39% sweets, 35% protein bars and 29% energy drinks, a share almost nine times higher than that recorded among the elderly.
This is what emerges from the Coldiretti-Censis Instant report Eat well to live better presented on the occasion of the national initiative Friendly Campaign for Health underway in over 70 of the main Italian and European hospital centers (the complete list is available on the coldiretti.it website), promoted by Coldiretti, Friendly Campaign and Aletheia Foundation.
The survey shows that for 97% of Italians, eating healthily is essential to prevent diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity but they often struggle to distinguish food that is good for you from food that is bad for you. Thus 88% of citizens want to know the real origin of a food and its ingredients.
Within the family, 58% of parents recognize that their children, as soon as they have the chance, tend to abandon a balanced diet, while the same percentage declares themselves in favor of limiting the consumption of ultra-formulated foods.
The report also highlights the risk of a growing distorted perception of these products. In fact, 27% of Italians believe that protein bars and energy drinks help keep fit. 35% of young people, 31% of adults and 16% of elderly people are convinced of this. Among young people, energy drinks are gaining more and more space in children’s habits, driven by aggressive marketing strategies, eye-catching packaging and social emulation dynamics.
However, awareness of the risks is growing: three out of four Italians say they are ready to give up protein bars (75%) and energy drinks (75%), while over seven out of ten would eliminate snacks (71%), sweets and candies (71%). More limited, but still a majority, is the share of those who would give up salty snacks (63%).
From Niguarda to Gemelli, farmers’ markets reach 70 hospitals
From the Niguarda in Milan to the Tiber Island in Rome, from the Gaslini in Genoa to the Santobono in Naples: farmers’ markets arrive in 70 hospitals in Italy thanks to the Friendly Campaign for Health initiative. An unprecedented event promoted by Coldiretti, Campagna Amica and Fondazione Aletheia which sanctions a new alliance between agriculture and medicine, founded on prevention through correct nutrition and on the valorization of the Mediterranean Diet as the first health aid. For the first time in the history of national healthcare, patients, family members, healthcare workers and citizens can find fresh, local, seasonal and tracked agricultural products within hospitals.
The complete list of participating structures is available on the coldiretti.it website. The day was opened by an institutional meeting at the Agostino Gemelli Irccs Foundation University Hospital, the first hospital to start the project with Coldiretti, the Campagna Amica Foundation and the Aletheia Foundation.
“We are tired of seeing sick people who have pathologies that could be prevented,” he said Antonio Gasbarrini, scientific director of the Gemelli University Polyclinic Foundation and president of the scientific committee of the Aletheia Foundation. «We know that nutrition is crucial especially in the first twenty years of life. Microbiome science has shown us that health is not just the absence of molecular disease: it is the resilience of a complex biological ecosystem, shaped by what we eat, the environment we live in and the experiences we go through.”
For this reason, added Gasbarrini, «bringing an agricultural market to seventy Italian hospitals is not a communication gesture, but is the demonstration that the integration between protective food environments and healthcare infrastructure is possible today. When we ingest some food, we must have the same certainties as when we take a drug. Today the main causes of death are chronic non-communicable diseases, which share a common risk factor: nutrition” added Rocco Bellantone, president of the Higher Institute of Health. Health is built above all in the places of daily life, investing in prevention also means having an impact on the sustainability of the national healthcare system.”
