Abstract
Objectives
Assessing the impact of beverage intake on health has been limited by lack of reliable and standardized individual-level data on a global scale. We aimed to quantify global distributions of intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), fruit juices, milk, coffee, and tea by country (n = 188), super-region (n = 6), key population characteristics (all ages, sex, education, urban/rural location) and time (1990, 2015).
Methods
Primary national and subnational survey data on beverage intake in the Global Dietary Database (GDD) were identified through systematic searches of electronic databases and communications with data owners worldwide. This includes 1137 survey-years representing 6.78B people from 185 countries worldwide (97.5% of the world's population). To address missing data and estimate distributions of intake for each diet factor and by country-, age-, sex-, education-, urban/rural- and year-specific stratum we developed a Bayesian hierarchical imputation model. The model combined primary intake data with time-varying country-level and survey-level covariates and further accounted for differences in intakes vs availability from FAO food disappearance data.
Results
In 2015, global SSB intake in adults (20 + y) was 0.37 servings (8-oz)/day (Fig 1). The Latin-American region had the highest SSB intake (1.15 servings/day) and Asia the lowest (0.14 servings/day). For fruit juices, global intake across all ages was 0.19 servings (8-oz)/day; highest intakes were seen in Latin America (0.64 servings/day) and lowest in Asia (0.06 servings/day) (Fig 2). Global milk intake was 0.39 servings (8-oz)/day, ranging from 0.64 servings/day in the High-Income region to 0.20 servings/day in Asia (Fig 3). Intakes were generally similar by sex and higher at younger ages, urban areas, and higher education levels. Findings for coffee and tea, and over time, will be presented at the meeting.
Conclusions
These novel global dietary data highlight substantial variation in beverage intake worldwide, further informing global diet surveillance, priority setting and nutrition strategies.
Funding Sources
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Supporting Tables, Images and/or Graphs
