Population attitudes towards changing dietary habits and reliance on general practitioners in Spain

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the relationship between population attitudes towards modifying food behaviour and reliance on General Practitioners (GPs) as nutrition educators.Design: Personal interview in a random sample of the general population of the Canary Islands as part of the Canary Islands Nutrition Survey.Subjects: 1747 individuals aged 6-74y.Main outcome measures: Attitudes towards changing food behaviour and reliance on GPs.Results: Response rate was 67%. Physicians were the most reliable source of nutrition information with 79% of the population considering them as highly reliable. More than 60% of the population showed a favourable attitude towards increasing fruit and vegetables and towards decreasing alcohol, sugar and pastries. Reliance on GPs was associated with better attitudes towards increasing fruits, decreasing meat, pastries, sugar and losing weight.Conclusions: Population attitudes towards changing certain dietary behaviours were associated with having the greatest reliance on GPs.