Food Enjoyment plays the biggest role when eating

For 75 percent of Swiss people, eating is a pleasure, enjoyment and social event, according to a study. Healthy eating, meanwhile, plays a much less important role.

Not quite half (48%) of the 2,100 people surveyed paid attention to a balanced composition of nutrients when eating. And only a third (35 percent) think about the long-term effects of nutrition on health when eating, the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute (GDI) reported on Monday. For around three quarters of those surveyed, eating together is the best opportunity to spend time with friends.

68 percent like to take time to enjoy a meal. Family and/or regional roots played a major role for around half of those surveyed. Over half of those surveyed cook traditionally at home and almost half say that their personal eating habits are strongly influenced by their origins.

The survey also compared the situation between Switzerland and its four large neighboring countries Germany, France, Italy and Austria. Community is the most important factor in food culture for all countries. Switzerland scored the highest, while southern Germany scored the lowest. Enjoyment comes in second place after community, with the countries close to each other.

Rootedness is in third place in almost all regions - only in southern Germany is health just ahead. Italy shows an upward outlier here: Respondents from the north of the country relied much more on tradition and family recipes than anyone else.

92% of respondents also stated that their eating habits had changed in the past ten years for the following reasons: New information (42 percent), weight control (40 percent), health concerns and financial reasons (32 percent each).

For around two thirds of respondents, family, partners or roommates have a major influence on eating behavior. In second and third place came the availability of food (56%) and its price (51%).

Young people more influenced by social media

Only 12% of those surveyed said that traditional media played a major role in their food choices - and only 11% said that social media played a major role.

However, there were major differences between the age groups when it came to the latter: While 71 percent of over-60s do not see themselves influenced by social media at all, around half of under-30s believe that social media at least partially shapes their eating habits. A quarter even spoke of a rather to very large influence.

SDA