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REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON MONITORING SCOTTISH DIETARY TARGETS
Executive Summary
The Scottish Diet Report (The Scottish Office, 1993) revealed the extent of Scotland's poor diet and its adverse impact on health. Following its publication, a series of population based targets for dietary improvements in Scotland were announced in 1994. These targets became the basis of the Scottish Diet Action Plan,
'Eating for Health' (The Scottish Office, 1996). More recently, the Scottish Executive's public health policy document 'Improving Health in Scotland: The Challenge' (2003) set out a commitment to further implementation of the Scottish Dietary Targets until at least 2010. 'Eating for Health: Meeting the Challenge' (Scottish Executive, 2004) establishes a joint implementation strategy with delivery partners for the further and ongoing implementation of the SDAP, strengthening the delivery of co-ordinated action. As part of this renewed impetus on diet and health, progress towards the Scottish Dietary Targets must be measured.
The population based Scottish Dietary Targets are set for specific nutrients and foods and include the percentage of food energy to be provided by fat, saturated fat and non-milk extrinsic sugars, and population averages in grams for the intake of certain types of food (e.g. fruit and vegetables).
The Scottish Executive Health Department and the Food Standards Agency Scotland established a Working Group on Monitoring Scottish Dietary Targets in April 2003. The Working Group's remit was:
To address this remit, the Working Group commissioned a briefing paper on dietary assessment methodologies and a review of diet and nutrition surveys currently taking place in Scotland. Experts in the field of nutritional surveillance from the UK and Ireland were invited to attend and give presentations at meetings of the Working Group. A number of possible ways of monitoring progress towards the Scottish Dietary Targets and key methodological issues were discussed and recommendations made.
Following consideration of the information presented and the expert opinions expressed, the Working Group concluded that there is no single existing survey currently capable of assessing progress towards all the Scottish Dietary Targets in 2005. The Working Group considered a number of different possibilities for monitoring progress toward the Scottish Dietary Targets beyond 2005.
The key recommendations of the Working Group are listed below and summarised in
Table 1. The full list of recommendations is presented in
Section 6 of this report.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS Use should be made of existing surveys, particularly the Expenditure and Food Survey, to monitor progress towards the Scottish Dietary Targets in 2005. Where data is currently lacking, as is the case for the targets for sodium and non- milk extrinsic sugars in children, interim studies may need to be set up. Future monitoring should take place every 3-5 years to provide data on ongoing progress towards the targets. The Expenditure and Food Survey should continue to be used for monitoring the Scottish Dietary Targets beyond 2005. For monitoring progress towards the Scottish Dietary Targets beyond 2005, the possibly of increasing the number of Scottish participants in any future UK nutritional surveillance programme should be considered so that the data generated is representative for Scotland. Increased sample sizes for sub groups such as lower socio-economic groups, the elderly and ethnic minority groups should also be considered. The inclusion of dietary risk markers and information about lifestyle choices should be considered when planning any future nutritional surveillance in Scotland. The possibility of setting up a new stand alone dietary survey, using the framework of the Republic of Ireland's Survey for Lifestyles Attitude and Nutrition, should be considered. The views expressed in this report should form the basis of decisions when commissioning the Scottish Health Survey. |
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