Aligning human and planetary health: towards tailored dietary advice for diverse citizen profiles.

Abstract

The global food system has inadequately addressed complex societal challenges, including climate change and nutritional deficiencies. There is an increasing recognition of the interconnectedness of human and planetary health in food production and consumption. Several policy interventions exist to tackle food-related nutritional and environmental aspects and influence consumer decision-making towards nutritious and environmentally friendly options. Examples of demand-side interventions include food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs), product labels, and taxes. In this contribution, a discussion of recent developments in demand-side interventions and their potential shortcomings highlights the need for different solutions. Advancing personalised dietary advice is an alternative to FBDGs and complementary to existing interventions, requiring a conceptual shift away from generic and population-based suggestions. Clustering and classification analysis of actual individual dietary patterns into citizen profiles is the first key step to developing relatable advice for each profile. For a transition toward plant-rich diets, this approach recognises (a) differentiated nutritional needs and deficiencies and (b) profile-sensitive 'starting points' for environmental impact reduction. In essence, while lowering the environmental impact, variability is incorporated at two levels: food choices among citizen profiles, obtained from the clustering and classification analysis, and nutritional adequacy for each profile. A first set of such citizen profiles has been reported for the Belgian population. We recommend further application of this approach in populations in other geographies. The next key steps towards developing relatable advice for the obtained citizen profiles demand that we start looking at the cultural consumption habits and strive for improved food literacy in our societies.