Healthy Eating Varies by Generation

Healthy eating varies by generation, with older adults eating more healthfully than your generations, which creates an opportunity for food and beverage marketers to communicate specific product benefits, according to a new market report from the NPD Group. The findings reveal four out of five adults have a diet whose quality needs improvement.

According to the report, “Healthy Eating Strategies by Generation", Generation X, Y and younger Boomers range in age from 21 to54 and have the least healthful diets. Older consumers, ages 54 and up, often have the greatest need to eat healthy due to underlying medical conditions.

The report did find that adult consumers, across generations, define healthy eating consistently and are aware of the top characteristics of healthy eating and of a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise, eating balanced meals, eating in moderation, limiting/avoiding foods with saturated fat or cholesterol or trans fats, and drinking at least eight glasses of water per day.

The findings also indicate nutritional value of foods is important to many adults. In fact, nearly 85 million adults ranked nutritional value/healthful as No. 1 or No. 2 in importance as a need driver in deciding what to eat and drink; taste and price/value are in the top three for the three younger generations. For older consumers, freshness replaces price/value in ranked importance.

While many aspects of their diets could use improvement, overall, the largest deficiencies in adults' diets are insufficient intake of fruits, vegetables, and dairy products and over consumption of total fats. Consumption of total fats is the most critical for those 54 and older.

“Educating consumers about proper health and nutrition need not be the primary goal for food manufacturers," said Dori Hickey, director of product development at NPD and author of the report. “Connecting the dots for consumers in terms of a product benefit to a fundamental characteristic of healthy eating is more the challenge."

Sources:

* NPD Group: U.S. Adults Understand Principles of Healthful Eating but the Practice of Eating Healthy Varies by Generation, Reports NPD