ONS Modeling of Diet Concepts: Further Development Required by the Objective Definition of "Western Diet"

The industrial revolution was the main driver for the “westernization” of human lifestyle, increasing the intake of highly industrially processed foods, rich in simple sugars and saturated fats. This new dietary pattern is often referred to as the “western diet”. The issue of using this term is that it lacks a standardized definition. Moreover, the dietary pattern that characterizes this diet is not entirely restricted to the West anymore. In this way, we propose a new definition of the diet that is heavily rooted on the process of food choice management, which is influenced by several documented socio-economic factors, such as geography, income and education. Moreover, we suggest that “Globalized diet” should be preferred as a label for the underlying concept of the “Western diet” since developed countries share more dietary traits among themselves than with developing countries, where the industrial revolution was less impactful, and where the globalized lifestyle has yet to be established. We are currently reaching out to as many researchers in the food nutrition field to achieve consensus in our proposed definition as we recognize the importance of standardizing terms for the generation of new knowledge through meta-analysis on broad multi-center nutritional studies.