Introduction: The ingestion of fruits, vegetables and cereals, especially whole grain, is associated
with a healthy lifestyle and has been recognized as having multiple health benefits, associated,
among others, to the ingestion of adequate amounts of dietary fibre.
Objective: The aim of this work was to evaluate some eating habits related to fibre rich foods in
six different countries: Argentina, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal and Romania.
Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out by means of questionnaire survey
applied to a sample of 4905 participants, all over the age of 18 years old. The preparation and
application of the questionnaire followed the necessary ethical guidelines and the treatment
was made by SPSS.
Results: The results showed that for the global sample was observed a low ingestion of salads
and vegetables (78.2%), being this particularly problematic for Croatia (86.6%). Regarding the
consumption of fruits, for the whole sample the great majority also showed a low consumption
(92.3%), and for Latvian participants the percentage is very much expressive (98.3%). As for the
consumption of whole cereals, most participants also showed a low consumption, either for the
global sample (72.6%) or in the different countries, and particularly for Latvia (90.0%). Some
eating habits were also studied and it was observed that for the whole sample 71.9% showed a
low frequency of meals ate out of home, while 88.6% revealed acceptable frequency of eating
fast food, i.e, only once or twice a week. Conclusions: The results indicated that in the countries at study the ingestion of foods rich in
dietary fibre is very low, and therefore it is necessary to implement strategies to increase the
consumption of such foods.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
