Economic growth and the demand for dietary quality: Evidence from Russia during transition

The association between fast-food consumption and job-related factors among Russian adults

Time constraints contribute to individuals' dietary choices along with incomes, prices, and preferences. As fast food is prepared and served quickly, it is often preferred to other food options, especially when individuals are under time pressure. This paper focuses on a set of job-related characteristics that could potentially contribute to fast-food consumption choice, and controls for standard socio-demographic, economic, and lifestyle factors. This study uses data from a quantitative household survey on health behavior and medicine of Russian adults conducted in 2017 (n = 4006). The study applies simple probit, ordered probit, and zero-inflated ordered probit models to examine how job-related characteristics are connected to the probability and frequency of fast-food consumption among Russian adults. The results shows that employment is positively associated with both probability and frequency of fast-food consumption. However, for working adults, the decisions to eat fast food, and how frequently it is eaten, are affected by different factors. For example, working part time decreases the probability of fast-food consumption; having more than one job increases the frequency of its intake for fast-food consumers; having canteens with hot meals at work decreases the frequency of fast-food intake. Although job-related factors are significant in all models, marginal effects show that living in large cities, especially Moscow and Saint Petersburg, plays a larger role in the probability and frequency of fast-food consumption because access to various fast-food outlets increases in relation to the size of the settlement.

The impact of conditional cash transfers on nutrition outcomes: Experimental evidence from Mexico

In this paper, we study the effect of Progresa, a conditional cash transfer program in Mexico, on the micronutrient and macronutrient consumption levels of program participants. Overall, we find that Progresa has a complicated effect on nutrition outcomes. We find that treatment households increase their vitamin consumption by 15 percent and mineral consumption by 7 percent. Our results indicate that conditional cash transfers may have important positive effects on vitamin A, iron, and possibly calcium, which are under-consumed by a vast majority of the Mexican population. We also find that Progresa increases consumption of processed carbohydrates by 23 percent and saturated fat by about 5 percent. These findings suggest that Progresa has a dual effect on the nutrition outcomes of Progresa eligible households, likely improving macro- and micronutrient consumption levels, but also increasing the consumption of food categories that likely lead to increased prevalence of overweight and obesity.

Cardiovascular mortality attributable to dietary risk factors in 51 countries in the WHO European Region from 1990 to 2016: a systematic analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study

This study was performed to highlight the relationship between single dietary risk factors and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in the WHO European Region. We used the comparative risk assessment framework of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate CVD mortality attributable to diet; comprising eleven forms of CVDs, twelve food and nutrient groups and 27 risk-outcome pairs in four GBD regions including 51 countries by age and sex between 1990 and 2016. In 2016, dietary risks were associated with 2.1 million cardiovascular deaths (95% uncertainty interval (UI), 1.7-2.5 million) in the WHO European Region, accounting for 22.4% of all deaths and 49.2% of CVD deaths. In terms of single dietary risks, a diet low in whole grains accounted for approximately 429,000 deaths, followed by a diet low in nuts and seeds (341,000 deaths), a diet low in fruits (262,000 deaths), a diet high in sodium (251,000 deaths), and a diet low in omega-3 fatty acids (227,000 deaths). Thus, with an optimized, i.e. balanced diet, roughly one in every five premature deaths could be prevented. Although age-standardized death rates decreased over the last 26 years, the absolute number of diet-related cardiovascular deaths increased between 2010 and 2016 by 25,600 deaths in Western Europe and by 4300 deaths in Central Asia. In 2016, approximately 601,000 deaths (28.6% of all diet-related CVD deaths) occurred among adults younger than 70 years. Compared to other behavioural risk factors, a balanced diet is a potential key lever to avoid premature deaths.

Decomposition of changes in the consumption of macronutrients in Vietnam between 2004 and 2014

Vietnam is undergoing a nutritional transition like many middle-income countries. This transition is characterized by an increase in per capita total calorie intake resulting from an increase in the consumption of fat and protein while the carbohydrate consumption decreases. This paper proposes to highlight the sociodemographic drivers of this transition over the period 2004-2014, using Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey data. We implement a method of decomposition of between-year differences in economic outcomes recently proposed in the literature. This method decomposes the between-year change in various indicators related to the outcome distribution (mean, median, quantiles, etc.) into (1) the effect due to between-year change in the conditional distribution of the outcome given sociodemographic characteristics, or "structure effect", and (2) the effect due to the differences in sociodemographic characteristics across years, or "composition effect". In turn, this last effect is decomposed into direct contributions of each sociodemographic characteristics and effects of their interactions. The composition effect, always positive, generally outweighs the structure effect when considering the between-year changes in distributions of per capita calorie intake or calorie intake coming from protein or fat. The effects of changes in the composition of the Vietnamese population thus overcome the effects of changes in preferences of the same population. This finding is reversed in the case of carbohydrates. Food expenditure and household size appear to be the main contributors to the composition effect. The positive effects of these two variables explain well most of the between-year shifts observed in the calorie intake distributions. Urbanization and level of education contribute negatively to the composition effect, with the noticeable exception of fat where the effect of urbanization is positive. But these two variables effects are negligible compared to those of food expenditure and household size.