Alimentación salud y cultura - SANHISO C. International health and ...

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Diversos autores
People are just constantly eating and drinking all the time and you
never saw this before. We just didn’t snack before. You just ate at meal
times (Female, aged 56-65, Focus Group Participant)
One participant felt that the reason snacking had become commonplace
was a combination of improved food storage and refrigeration, the
prevalence of ‘Buy One Get One Free’ deals in supermarkets and the
increase in the number of working mothers, which meant that ‘grazing
became a normal state of affairs (Female, aged 66-75, Focus Group Participant).
The nutritional content of typical snack foods was also addressed,
with many referring to such foods as ‘junk’ and these products were
also blamed for rising obesity levels within Britain. In light of the
discussions at the focus group and website forum threads, the issue
was also addressed within the survey, specifically looking at typical
snack foods which people consume, along with snacking frequency.
The findings show that the average number of snacks consumed per
person per day was three, with some participants regularly consuming
five snacks a day. The most popular types of snacks were crisps,
biscuits and chocolate, with only 25% of participants selecting what
were deemed to be ‘healthier snacks’ (fruit, nuts, cereal bars and yoghurts).
Other typical snacks reported were cake, sandwiches, cheese,
custard, muffins and toast. These findings correlate with the ideas
presented by focus group participants as to what people typically
choose to snack on, as well as how often people snack. Two of the
most popular snacks, crisps and chocolate bars, are foods which now
come in a range of different sizes, often with ‘big eat’ ‘king size’ and
‘super size’ options. For instance, a standard bag of Walkers ready salted
crisps contains 133kcal, whereas a ‘Big Eat’ bag of the same product
contains 265kcal, basically twice as many. The increased portion
sizes available for these products, coupled with the fact that they are
frequently consumed can only be detrimental to consumers’ health.
Discussion
The research shows that there is public awareness of an increase in
portion sizes, with many people viewing this change negatively. The
impact of exposure to American culture, a cause suggested by participants,
is certainly a plausible explanation as to why portion sizes